ISLAMABAD, February 18, 2016: The Senate passed four bills and witnessed introduction of a bill on Thursday during its single sitting 125^th session, says Free and Fair Election Network (FAFEN).

Some key observations are as follows:

Members’ Participation in House Proceedings

• The Senate met for two hours and 29 minutes.
• The sitting started at its scheduled time of 1500 hours.
• The Chairman presided over the entire sitting.
• The Deputy Chairman was not present.
• The Leader of the House attended the entire sitting.
• The Opposition Leader attended the sitting for 119 minutes.
• Prime Minister did not attend the sitting.
• Eighteen (17%) senators were present at the start and 38 (37%) at the time of adjournment.
• Parliamentary leaders of JUI-F, PkMAP, PPPP, MQM, PML-N, PML and ANP were present.
• Three minority members were present.

Output

• The House passed four bills without any amendments including the Electoral Rolls (Amendment) Bill, 2015; the Delimitation of Constituencies (Amendment) Bill, 2015; the Pakistan Halal Authority Bill, 2015 and the Publication of Laws of Pakistan Bill, 2015.
• The House witnessed introduction of the Pakistan International Airlines Corporation (Conversion) Bill, 2015 which was referred to the relevant committee for further deliberations.
• The Chairman of Standing Committee on Law and Justice presented report on the Un-attended Orphans (Rehabilitation and Welfare) Bill, 2013 aimed at rehabilitation and welfare of the un-attended orphan children.

Representation and Responsiveness

• The House took up one Calling Attention Notices (CANs) about increasing number of incidents of blasts due to sub-standard gas cylinders in absence of action against the illegal gas refilling stations. Another notice regarding less number of Judges in Federal Shariah Court was not taken up due to absence of mover.
• The House passed three separate motions to extend period for presentation of Standing Committees’ reports.
• Two Adjournment Motions (AMs) about incident of terrorism on Charsada University and visit of Prime Minister and Army Chief to Saudi Arabia and Iran were dropped due to absence of mover.
• Another AM about non-reduction of the prices of petroleum products was also dropped as the issue was already discussed oin the previous session that was requisitioned by the Opposition to discuss the same issue.
• All 13 starred questions appearing on the agenda were answered by the relevant departments while the Senators also raised 32 supplementary questions.

Order and Institutionalization

• Twenty-seven lawmakers spoke on as many Points of Public Importance for 40 minutes.
• The entire Opposition staged token walkout twice over killing of PPPP worker in AJK and increase in price of life saving medicines.

Transparency

• ‘Orders of the Day’ was available to the legislators, observers and public.

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