ISLAMABAD, January 12, 2015: The Senate took up its entire agenda appearing on Orders of the Day on Tuesday during second sitting of its 123rd session, says Free and Fair Election Network (FAFEN) in its Daily Factsheet.

Some key observations are as follows:

Members’ Participation in House Proceedings

• The Senate met for four hours and 14 minutes while also taking a prayer-break for 17 minutes.
• The sitting started one minute late against its scheduled time of 1500 hours.
• The Chairman presided over the entire sitting while the Deputy Chairman was also present.
• Prime Minister did not attend the sitting.
• The Leader of the House attended the entire sitting.
• The Opposition Leader was present for three hours and 45 minutes.
• Federal Ministers for Climate Change; Information, Broadcasting & National Heritage; Defense Production; Industries and Production; Planning Development and Reform and Commerce were present.
• 12 (11%) Senators were present at the start and 30 (29%) at the time of adjournment.
• Parliamentary leaders of MQM, PML-N, PPPP, PkMAP, JUI-F, BNP-M and PML were present.
• Two minority members were present.

Output

• The House passed a resolution to pay tribute to late poet Ahmed Faraz in connection with his birth anniversary.

Representation and Responsiveness

• The Chair admitted an adjournment motion for discussion about recent tension in the relations between Saudi Arabia and Iran. The Chair asked the Advisor to Prime Minister on Foreign Affairs to give in camera briefing to the House about the issue on Wednesday after the question hour.
• The House passed a motion to convert House into a Committee of the Whole to consider the need for revival of student unions in the educational institutions in the country particularly in colleges and universities.
• The House discussed the Annual Reports of the Council of Islamic Ideology for the years 2009-10, 2010-11 and 2011-12 on a motion under Rule 157 (2). Fifteen lawmakers and Chairman Senate discussed it for 93 minutes.
• The House took up two Calling Attention Notices (CANs) regarding the decision of ECC to give subsidy to the sugar mills and import of various vegetables and fruit from Iran. Both of these CANs were responded to by the Minister for Commerce.
• All 12 starred questions appearing on the agenda were taken up. In addition, the lawmakers raised 13 supplementary questions.

Order and Institutionalization

• Twenty points of public importance consumed 55 minutes of the proceeding’s time.

Transparency

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

To download the factsheet, click here for English version – click here for Urdu version

This daily factsheet is based on direct observation of the Senate proceeding conducted by Free and Fair Election Network (FAFEN). Errors and omissions are excepted