• The National Commission on the Status of Women Bill, 2012 passed

ISLAMABAD, February 02, 2012:  The Senate unanimously passed the National Commission on the Status of Women Bill 2012 during its 13^th sitting of the 77^th session.

Spread over an hour and 15 minutes, the sitting was marked by low attendance of Senators with only 11 present at the start and 15 at the end.

The Quorum was visibly lacking at various stages of the sitting. However, it was not pointed out by any of the Legislators.

Only nine out of 17 Starred questions listed for the Question Hour were responded by the relevant minister.

The Leader of the House and the Leader of the Opposition attended the entire sitting.

Following are some key observations of the parliamentary business:

Members’ Participation in House Proceedings

• The Senate met for an hour and 15 minutes.
• The sitting started at 1630 hours instead of the scheduled starting time of 1600 hours. The House proceedings started 30 minutes late.
• The Chairman chaired the sitting.
• The Leader of the House and the Leader of the Opposition were present.
• The Parliamentary Leaders of the PMLN, MQM, PMLF, PKMAP, ANP and the JI attended the sitting while those of the PML, NP, JWP, BNPA and the PPPS were absent.
• Eleven Senators (11%) were present at the start of the sitting while 15 (15%) were there when the sitting was adjourned. A maximum of 28 Senators (28%) were present during one point of the sitting.
• Three Senators applied for leave to be absent.

Representation and Responsiveness

• Seventeen questions were listed for the Question Hour; only nine were put up and responded to by the relevant minister.
• A total of 21 supplementary questions were raised during the sitting.

Output

• The National Commission on the Status of Women Bill, 2012 was unanimously passed by the House.

Order and Institutionalization

• No Points of Order were raised during the sitting.
• There were no instances of protests, boycotts or walkouts.

Transparency

• Orders of the Day were available to Legislators, observers and others.
• Information on Members’ attendance was unavailable to observers and the public.
• The Quorum was visibly lacking at various stages during the sitting. However, this was not pointed out by any of the Senators.

After successfully observing proceedings of the National Assembly, the Free and Fair Election Network (FAFEN) has started the observation of the provincial assemblies – Sindh, Punjab, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan – and the Senate. This daily factsheet is based on FAFEN’s direct observation of the 13th sitting of 77th session of the Senate. These reports are released on the day the sittings are held to provide media and other interested stakeholders vital statistics about the Assembly proceedings to encourage informed public discourse on its performance.

The Daily Factsheet is based on direct observation of the Senate proceedings conducted by Center for Peace and Development Initiatives (CPDI), a member organization of FAFEN