ISLAMABAD, November 17, 2017: The Senate passed the Elections (Amendment) Bill, 2017 that seeks to insert a new clause in the Elections Act, 2017 regarding status of Ahmadis, observes the Free and Fair Election Network (FAFEN) in its DailyFactsheet on Friday.

Following are key observations of the proceedings of first sitting of 270th session:

Members’ Participation

• The Senate met for three hours.
• The sitting started at 1013 hours against its scheduled time of 1000 hours.
• The Chairman presided over the entire sitting while the Deputy Chairman was also present.
• The Leader of the House attended the sitting for two hours and 45 minutes.
• The Leader of the Opposition attended the sitting for 55 minutes.
• The parliamentary leaders of PPPP, MQM, JI, PkMAP, JUI-F, BNP-M and NP attended the sitting.
• As many as 13 lawmakers (12% of the total membership) were present at the outset and 11 (10%) at the end of sitting.
• Two minority Senators attended the sitting.

Output

• Moved by the Minister for Law and Justice, the House passed the Elections (Amendment) Bill, 2017. The bill seeks to insert a new clause in the Elections Act 2017 and it was passed as received from the National Assembly. As many as four lawmakers debated the bill for 29 minutes while the Minister In-Charge concluded the debate consuming 11 minutes.
• The Chair deferred the consideration and the passage of the Constitution (Amendment) Bill, 2017. The amendment seeks to reallocate the National Assembly seats among federating units.
• The Chair gave a ruling regarding the delay in the announcement of National Finance Commission (NFC) award. He spoke for 32 minutes on the subject.

Representation and Responsiveness

• The House adopted a motion to suspend the requirement of holding Question Hour.
• The Chair rejected two Adjournment Motions (AM) regarding political instability and climate change in Pakistan while an AM was dropped due to absence of the concerned lawmaker.
• As many as two lawmakers participated in the discussion on division of power among state institutions. The discussion continued for 24 minutes.
• As many as three lawmakers participated in a discussion on an AM regarding alarming fiscal situation in the country. The discussion continued for 31 minutes and was concluded by the Minister for Federal Education and Professional Training.
• As many as eight lawmakers spoke on Points of Public Importance consuming 23 minutes of the proceedings.

Order and Institutionalization 

• The lawmakers did not raise any point of order.
• A PPPP lawmaker staged  token walkout against non-representation of Sindh in Indus System River Authority (IRSA).

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