ISLAMABAD, January 1, 2020: The Senate transacted its entire business on Wednesday while the government introduced four bills in the House, says Free and Fair Election Network (FAFEN) in its Daily Factsheet.

Following are key observations of the House proceedings during first sitting of 295^th session:

Members’ Participation

• The House met for two hours and 31 minutes.
• The sitting started at the 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 Leader of the Opposition was present for an hour and five minutes.
• The Prime Minister did not attend the sitting.
• As many as 19 lawmakers (18%) were present at the outset and 24 (23%) at the adjournment of the sitting.
• The parliamentary leaders of PPPP, PTI, PkMAP, BAP, JUI-F, ANP, JI and PML-N attended the sitting.
• As many as two out of four minority lawmakers were present.

Output

• The Minister for Parliamentary Affairs introduced the Geographical Indications (Registration and Protection) Bill, 2019 and the Naya Pakistan Housing and Development Authority Bill, 2019. Both bills were referred to the relevant committees for further consideration.
• The Minister for Economic Affairs Division introduced the Foreign Exchange Regulation (Amendment) Bill, 2019 and the Anti-Money Laundering (Amendment) Bill, 2019 which were also referred to the relevant committee for deliberations.
• As many as 22 reports of various Standing Committees, three statutory reports, two reports each of Functional Committee on Problems of Less Developed Areas and a Special Committee and a report of the Committee on Rules of Procedure and Privileges were presented in the House.

Representation and Responsiveness

• As many as 10 lawmakers participated in a debate on the constitutional requirement for annual meetings of the House in a parliamentary year. The debate continued for an hour and 51 minutes. Constitutionally, the Senate should meet for at least 110 working days in a parliamentary year. So far, the House has met for 53 working days and is required to meet for additional 57 days during 71 days left of the current parliamentary year.
• The Minister for Parliamentary Affairs laid an authenticated copy of the Address of the President of Pakistan to the Parliament. He also moved the House to pass a motion of thanks to the President for his address on September 12, 2019.

Order and Institutionalization

• A newly elected PTI Senator from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa took the oath.
• The House was adjourned to meet again on January 2, 2020 (Thursday) at 1500 hours.

Transparency

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

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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