Senate Concludes Debate on Presidential Address

ISLAMABAD, January 22, 2019: The Senate took up its entire agenda and concluded the debate on the presidential address to the Parliament on Tuesday, says Free and Fair Election Network (FAFEN) in its Daily Factsheet.

Following are key observations of the House proceedings during second sitting of the 286^th session:

Members’ Participation

• The House met for three hours and 11 minutes.
• The sitting started at the scheduled time of 1430 hours.
• The Chairman presided over the entire sitting while the Deputy Chairman did not attend the sitting.
• The Leader of House attended the entire sitting.
•  The Leader of the Opposition was present for two hours and 11 minutes.
• The Prime Minister did not attend the sitting.
• As many as 13 lawmakers (12%) were present at outset and 15 (14%) at adjournment of the sitting.
• The parliamentary leaders of PPPP, PTI, BNP-M, PkMAP and PML-F attended the sitting.
• As many as two out of four minority lawmakers were present.

Output

• The Minister of State for Parliamentary Affairs presented the Federal Public Service Commission’s Annual Report for the year 2017 and the Report on I-Voting Pilot Test in 35 Constituencies held on October 14, 2018.
• The Minister for Human Rights presented the annual reports of the National Commission on the Status of Women and the National Commission for Human Rights for the year 2017.

Representation and Responsiveness

• The government answered 12 out of 24 Starred Questions while three questions were disposed of due to absence of the movers and the remaining nine questions were not taken up. These questions were addressed to Ministries of Commerce and Textile, Climate Change, Aviation, and Cabinet Division. The lawmakers asked 29 supplementary questions as well.

• Sponsored by JI lawmakers, the Minister of State for Parliamentary Affairs responded to a Calling Attention Notice (CAN) about the decision of Peshawar High Court declaring FATA Interim Governance Regulation against the Constitution and giving one-month deadline to the government for legislation in this regard.
• The Minister for Railways responded to a CAN of PkMAP lawmaker regarding the non-operationalization of Sibbi-Harnei and Shahrag-Khost railway route.
• As many as seven lawmakers participated in the debate on Presidential Address and spoke for 57 minutes. The Minister of State for Parliamentary Affairs concluded debate and spoke for 17 minutes. The House adopted a motion of thanks to the President for his address to the Parliament.

• As many as two lawmakers spoke on Points of Public Importance consuming twenty minutes of the proceedings.

 Order and Institutionalization 

• The House was adjourned to meet again on January 23, 2019 (Wednesday) at 1730 hours.

Transparency

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

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

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