The countrys 1945 Constitution has been amended four times and DPD hopes to continue the amendment to keep pace with the prevailing condition.
"Many have said that the existence of DPD is almost unknown," a DPD member from the province of Banten Ahmad Subadri said when the Law Planning Committee (PPUU) of DPD gave an audience to law students of the University of Sultan Ageng Tirtayasa here on Monday.
The senator said DPD continues the struggle to fulfill the people expectation in line with the condition.
"Through DPD group in the Peoples Consultative Assembly (MPR) we seek to approach all stakeholders to propose the fifth amendment to the State Constitution," he said.
He said currently DPD is seeking to gain greater authority in the struggle for regional interest.
The struggle begins to show result as obvious from the support from experts, politicians and higher learning institutes, he said.
The PPUU chairman M Afnan said with the limited authority, DPD has continued to work as could be seen from the increase in the number of the draft laws included in the National Legislation Program (Prolegnas) for 2016.
There are seven draft laws, as against only one draft law resulted in a tripartite agreement last year, he said referring to agreement between DPD, the Parliament (DPR) and the government.
"The number of draft laws included in Prolegnas in 2016 rose to seven under tripartite agreement from only one last year," he said.
Afnan said currently there are four draft laws being discussed at the Parliament as an agreement between the government, DPR and DPD.
The four draft laws include bills on state companies (BUMN) and regional administration companies (BUMD), archipelago concept,creative economy and cooperatives.
Commenting on the limited authority of DPD, deputy chairman of PPUU Baiq Diyah Ratu Ganefi said "that does not affect the spirit of the senators to continue to the struggle for the regional interest.
"We have struggle and contributed greatly to the regional interest despite the limited authority. We have been consistent with our duty such as being a watchdog for the performance of the ministries in the region," he said.
A lecturer at University of Sultan Ageng Tirtayasa, Rahmat Jajuli, said expressed support for greater authority for DPD that it could function more effectively for the regional interests.
"As an educational entity , we see DPD has an important role for the regional development . For that we from the University of Sultan Ageng Tirtayasa support the initiative to strengthen DPD with greater authority," he said.(*)
Editor: Heru Purwanto
Copyright © ANTARA 2016
