The Prime Minister’s disqualification by the Supreme Court in June and the dual nationality controversy dominated the 83rd session of Senate held between 9th July and 13th July 2012.
Additionally the Validation Ordinance 2012 giving cover to acts, orders, and instruments issued by the ousted prime minister during the period between his conviction and formal disqualification (April 26-June 19, 2012) was placed before the House.
As the Upper House passed the Contempt of Court Bill – amid boycott by the opposition PMLN – ahead of the hearing on the NRO implementation case in the Supreme Court, national issues such as energy crisis were overshadowed.
It was evident that the government and its allies were preoccupied with the political agenda – the ministry of water and power provided answer only to one of the 18 questions directed towards it during the session. Similarly the two calling attention notices on the government’s failure to overcome power outages and the increase in its tariffs were not taken up during the session. A motion under rule 218 on “situation arising out of the load shedding” was also ignored by the house.
In the backdrop of the Supreme Court suspending membership of parliamentarians holding dual nationalities, the government introduced the Constitution (22nd Amendment) Bill 2012. However it was opposed by the government ally – ANP.
The seven Resolutions not discussed during the session brought to the House important national issues such as missing persons, asking the government to sign and ratify the International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearances, campaign against illegal weapons in Karachi, and correcting voters’ lists in Karachi.
The session was marked by three walkouts, one rotest and one boycott. Two walkouts and a protest over shortage of water in Gwadar, killing of policemen from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa in Lahore in a terrorist attack, bomb blast at a rally of ANP near Quetta and the cross border attack of Afghan forces on Bajaur were staged by Senators belonging to different parties. The ANP Senators walked out of the House over the introduction of the 22nd constitutional amendment (dual nationality) while the PMLN Senators boycotted the sitting in which the Contempt of Court bill was passed.
Senators also erroneously raised 47 Points of Orders to make speeches instead of pointing out any perceived breach in parliamentary discipline. None of these Points of Order attracted the Chairman’s ruling and hence did not contribute to any parliamentary output, consuming 27% of the time otherwise allocated for regular agenda.
The five sittings of the session were spread over 13 hours and 12 minutes and each sitting began late by an average of 40 minutes. As the Senate secretariat does not share Members’ attendance records with the public, FAFEN’s observer conducts a rough headcount at the beginning and end of each sitting, as well as at any point when there is maximum number of Members in the House. The data shows that on average, eight Senators were present at the start and 32 at the end of each sitting in the 83rd session, while an average maximum of 60 members were present during each sitting. Hence, quorum – the 1/4th of the total 100 members required for sittings to proceed – was only complete after the sitting had already begun, and several members left the house before the sitting was complete. Out of the total ten minority Senators in the House, at least one attended all sittings.
The Parliamentary Leader of ANP attended all five sittings, followed by the NP (three). The heads of the other parties in the Upper House attended two sittings each. The Chairman and the Leader of the House, both belonging to PPPP, attended all five sittings. The Leader of the Opposition attended three and the Deputy Chairman attended only one sitting.
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