ISLAMABAD, October 30, 2017: The Senate passed a private member’s bill and adopted four private members’ resolutions on Monday, observes Free and Fair Election Network (FAFEN) in its Daily Factsheet.

Following are key observations of the House proceedings during sixth sitting of the 269^th session:

Members’ Participation

• The Senate met for four hours and 10 minutes.
• The proceedings remained suspended for eight minutes to express solidarity with a journalist who was attacked in Islamabad and for 12 minutes due to prayer break.
• The sitting started at the scheduled time of 1530 hours.
• The Chairman presided over the entire sitting while the Deputy Chairman was also present.
• The Leader of the House attended the sitting for 46 minutes.
• The Leader of the Opposition did not attend the sitting.
• The parliamentary leaders of PkMAP, ANP, MQM, PPPP, BNP-M, PML-N and PTI attended the sitting.
• As many as 16 (15% of the total membership – 104) lawmakers were present at the start and 12 (11%) at the adjournment of the sitting.
• Two minority legislators also attended the proceedings.

Output

• The House passed the Pakistan Bait-ul-Mal (Amendment) Bill, 2017.
• The House referred the Pakistan Penal Code (Amendment) Bill, 2017 (Amendment of section 323) to the joint sitting of the Parliament. The bill was earlier passed by the Senate and referred to the National Assembly where it was not considered within stipulated period of 90 days.
• The Chair deferred the Criminal Laws (Amendment) Bill, 2017 (regarding punishment for attempting suicide).
• A PTI lawmaker withdrew the Pakistan Penal Code (Amendment) Bill, 2017 (Amendment of sections 273, 274, 275) and the Pakistan Penal Code (Amendment) Bill, 2016 (Insertion of new sections 320A and 337JJ).
• The House adopted four private members’ resolutions recommending the government to introduce three slabs for tariff of natural gas for domestic consumers in Balochistan, provide state of the art medical equipment in hospitals of Islamabad, mark zebra crossings on all roads in Islamabadand legislate for controlling spurious and sub-standard drugs.
• The House dropped three resolutions due to absence of the concerned lawmakers.

Representation and Responsiveness

• The House held discussions on six Motions under Rule 218 regarding increase in the amount of house building advance to the Government employees, status of land reforms, management of borders with Iran and Afghanistan, security measures to combat emergency situation in hotels and commercial buildings of Islamabad Capital Territory and cantonment areas, inhuman conditions of brick kilns labourers in the Islamabad and management affairs of PIA. As many 17 lawmakers took part in these discussions consuming an hour and 34 minutes. The federal ministers for Law & Justice, Information and Broadcasting, Interior and Parliamentary Affairs summed up the discussions and consumed 25 minutes of the proceedings.
• The House deferred the discussion on two motions regarding reservations on the recent census and performance of the Drug Regulatory Authority of Pakistan (DRAP) on request of relevant ministers.
• The House did not take up a motion regarding incidents of enforced disappearances in the country as the issue was discussed later through a point of public importance.
• The federal ministers for Narcotics Control, Law & Justice, Kashmir Affairs, Interior and States and Frontier Regions responded to six points of public importance.
• The lawmakers raised five Points of Public Importance consuming 10 minutes of the proceedings.
• The House did not hold scheduled discussion on recent visit of the US Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs to South Asia due to absence of relevant officials from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Transparency

• ‘Orders of the Day’ was available to the legislators, observers and public.
• The attendance of lawmakers is available on the Senate 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