ISLAMABAD, January 20, 2017: The Senate transacted its entire agenda on Friday during 10th and last sitting of the 258th session, observes Free and Fair Election Network (FAFEN) in its Daily Factsheet.
Following are key observations of the proceedings:
Members’ Participation
- The Senate met for two hours and 37 minutes.
- The sitting started two minutes behind the scheduled time of 1030 hours.
- The Deputy Chairman presided over the entire sitting.
- The Leader of the House attended the sitting for an hour and 40 minutes, while the Leader of the Opposition did not attend the proceedings.
- The Prime Minister was not present.
- Parliamentary leaders of PPPP, PTI, JUI-F, PkMAP and BNP-M attended the proceedings.
- Twelve members (11% of the total membership -104) were present at the outset and 5 (4%) at the end of sitting.
- Two minority lawmakers attended the sitting.
Output
- Chairman, Standing Committee on Law and Justice presented reports on the National Commission for International Law and Commitments Bill, 2016; the Constitution (Amendment) Bill, 2016 (Amendment of Article 209, and Order of the Chairman National Accountability Bureau (NAB) for giving acting or current charge to various officers of NAB, in violation of rules.
- Chairman, Committee on Rules of Procedure and Privileges presented reports against officials for not attending meeting of the Senate Committee on Communications, and Secretary Aviation and the concerned Director of PIA for not giving information on PIA ATR aircraft crash on December 7, 2016.
- On behalf of Chairperson Functional Committee on Human Rights, a PPPP lawmaker presented reports of the Hindu Marriage Bill, 2016 and the Juvenile Justice System (Amendment) Bill, 2016.
Representation and Responsiveness
- The House discussed the 2nd Biannual Monitoring report on the Implementation of National Finance Commission (NFC) Award (January-June, 2016). Seven lawmakers, including State Minister for Interior spoke on it for 44 minutes.
- The House took up two Calling Attention Notices (CANs). The first CAN was regarding the high fee being charged by the private educational institutions in Islamabad Capital Territory while the other CAN, relating to granting equivalence certificates to O and A Level students by Inter Board Committee of Chairmen (IBCC), was referred to the relevant committee.
- Twelve out of 22 Starred Questions appearing on the agenda were taken up. In addition, lawmakers asked 27 Supplementary Questions.
Order and Institutionalization
- The House discussed two Points of Public Importance for four minutes.
- The entire opposition walked out of the House for five minutes against the Chair for not allowing a PPPP lawmaker to raise a Supplementary Question. As per the law, three Supplementary Questions had already been raised on this specific question related to the health sector.
Transparency
- ‘Orders of the Day’ was available to the legislators, observers and public.
- The attendance of lawmakers is available on the website.
This daily factsheet is based on direct observation of the Senate proceedings conducted by Free and Fair Election Network (FAFEN). Errors and omissions are excepted