ISLAMABAD, April 17, 2015: Starting one minute before the scheduled time, the Senate took up two calling attention notices (CANs) during the 6^th sitting of its ongoing 114^th session on Friday, says Free and Fair Election Network (FAFEN).

The sitting started at 1014 hours against its scheduled time of 1015 hours with 28 legislators (27%) present at the start and 39 (38%) at the time of adjournment. Fourteen points of order (POs) consumed 36 minutes of the sitting.

The House took up two CANs. The first CAN was about the government’s decision to call back the Commercial Councilors posted abroad while the other was regarding the problems being faced by the general public for bio-metric verification of their SIM cards and blockage of millions of unverified SIM cards by the PTA.

Following are some key observations of the House proceedings:

Members’ Participation in House Proceedings

• The Senate met for two hours and 28 minutes.
• The sitting started one minute before scheduled time of 1015 hours.
• The Chairman presided over the sitting for an hour and 11 minutes, Deputy Chairman for 55 minutes while a member of panel of Chairpersons presided over the proceedings for 22 minutes.
• The Leader of the House attended the entire sitting.
• The Opposition Leader was absent.
• 28 senators (27%) were present at the start and 39 (38%) at the end of the sitting.
• A maximum of 47 senators (45%) attended the sitting.
• The parliamentary leaders of PkMAP, PPPP, PTI, MQM, PML-N, BNP-M, PML-F, JUI-F and JI were present.
• Three minority members attended the sitting.
• Three members applied for leave.

Representation and Responsiveness

• Eight out of 17 starred questions appearing on the agenda were taken up during the sitting. Additionally, the legislators raised 31 supplementary questions.
• The House took up two CANs. First CAN was about the government’s decision to call back the Commercial Councilors posted abroad while the other was regarding the problems being faced by the general public for bio-metric verification of their SIM cards and blockage of millions of unverified SIM cards by the PTA.

Order and Institutionalization

• Fourteen points of order (POs) consumed 36 minutes of the sitting.

Transparency

• Orders of the Day was available to the legislators, observers and others.
• Information on members’ attendance was not available to the observers and the public.  

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This publication has been produced with the assistance of the European Union. The contents of this publication are the sole responsibility of FAFEN and in no way reflect the views of the European Union. This daily factsheet is based on direct observation of the Senate proceedings conducted by PATTAN Development Organization – a member organization of FAFEN. Errors and omissions are excepted.