ISLAMABAD, September 14, 2015: The Senate witnessed low attendance of lawmakers on Monday during the first sitting of its 119th session as major part of the sitting was consumed by Points of Order (POs), says Free and Fair Election Network (FAFEN).
Only 28 lawmakers (27%) were present at the start of the sitting and 29 (28%) at the time of adjournment. The lawmakers raised 16 POs which took up 65% (130 minutes) of the proceedings’ time.
The House witnessed introduction of the Pakistan Environmental Protection (Amendment) Bill, 2015 and the Working Women (Protection of Rights) Bill, 2015 while another bill –the Fair Representation of Women Bill, 2015– was dropped due to absence of mover.
The House adopted three resolutions in total, one regarding expressing condolence on demise of former Deputy Chairman Senate Mir Abdul Jabbar Khan, the other about replacing 33 KV transmission line laid out in Sherani, Zhob and Musakhel with 132 KV line and the last one pertaining to the legislation to make provisions for revision of decisions on the cases taken up under clause (3) of Article 184 of the Constitution.
Three other resolutions were not taken up by the House due to absence of movers which included launch of low cost housing schemes for the homeless families, evolving effective mechanisms to check and verify the truthfulness of the statements of assets and liabilities submitted to Election Commission by the parliamentarians and improving service of PIA.
The House debated two motions under Rule 218; one was about the current status of FATA and the other about overall security conditions at and around Tarbela Dam. Two other motions about the status of implementation of Aghaz-e-Haqooq-e-Balochistan Package and government’s decision to increase the domestic, commercial and industrial gas tariff were moved in the House and will be discussed in later sittings.
Another motion under Rule 218 about non-vacation of government quarters by the Estate Office Islamabad was not taken up due to absence of mover.
The House witnessed presentation of Standing Committees’ reports on the Companies (Amendment) Bill 2015, the Stock Exchanges (Corporatization, Demutualization and Integration) (Amendment) Bill 2015 and the Corporate Rehabilitation Bill, 2015. Two other reports were also presented before the House; one by the Standing Committee on Finance regarding various demands of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government and the other by Standing Committee on Water and power about demands of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government.
The House also extended the time period for presentation of two reports about demands of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government for 30 days as these reports were related to Standing Committees on Interior and Petroleum.
Some key observations are as follows:
Members’ Participation in House Proceedings
- The Senate met for three hours and 20 minutes
- The sitting started at 1502 hours against the scheduled time of 1500 hours
- Chairman presided over the entire sitting while the Deputy Chairman was also present
- The Leader of the House did not attend the sitting
- The Opposition Leader attended the entire sitting
- Prime Minister did not attend the sitting
- Twenty-eight (27%) senators were present at the start and 29 (28%) at the time of adjournment
- A maximum of 51 senators (49%) were present at one point of the sitting
- Parliamentary leaders of PPPP, NP, BNP-M, PML , PkMAP, PTI and JUI-F were present
- Three minority members were present
- Five members applied for leave
Output
- The House witnessed introduction of the Pakistan Environmental Protection (Amendment) Bill, 2015 and the Working Women (Protection of Rights) Bill, 2015.
- The House adopted three resolutions in total, one regarding expressing condolence on demise of former Deputy Chairman Senate Mir Abdul Jabbar Khan, the other about replacing 33 KV transmission line laid out in Sherani, Zhob and Musakhel with 132 KV line and the last one pertaining to the legislation to make provisions for revision of decisions on the cases taken up under clause (3) of Article 184 of the Constitution.
Representation and Responsiveness
- The House debated two motions under Rule 218 about current status of FATA and overall security conditions at and around Tarbela Dam.
- Two other motions about the status of implementation of Aghaz-e-Haqooq-e-Balochistan Package and government’s decision to increase the domestic, commercial and industrial gas tariff were moved in the House and will be discussed in later sittings.
Order and Institutionalization
- The lawmakers raised 16 POs which took up 65% (130 minutes) of the proceedings’ time
Transparency
- ‘Orders of the Day’ was available to the legislators, observers and public
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This daily factsheet is based on direct observation of the Senate proceedings conducted by PATTAN Development Organization – a member organization of FAFEN. Errors and omissions are excepted.