ISLAMABAD, April 19, 2017: The Senate passed one bill and deferred a Calling Attention Notice (CAN) due to ministerial absence in the House on Wednesday, observes Free and Fair Election Network in its Daily Factsheet.

Following are key observations of the proceedings during eighth sitting of Senate’s 261^st session:

 Members’ Participation

• The Senate met for two hours and 44 minutes.
• The sitting started at 1505 hours against the scheduled time of 1500 hours.
• The Chairman presided over the entire sitting while the Deputy Chairman was not present.
• The Leader of the House attended the sitting for an hour and 59 minutes while the Leader of the Opposition was not present.
• Prime Minister did not attend the sitting.
• Seventeen members (16%) were present at the outset and 20 (19%) at the adjournment of sitting.
• The Parliamentary leaders of JUI-F, MQM, ANP, PkMAP, PML-F, PPPP, JI, BNP-M and PML-N attended the sitting.
• One minority Senator also attended the proceedings.

Output

• The House passed the Limited Liability Partnership Bill, 2017.

Representation and Responsiveness

• Two Adjournment Motions on agenda were dropped due to the absence of respective sponsors at the time of consideration.
• The House passed a motion under Rule 172A for constituting the House into a Committee of the Whole to develop strategy that addresses the increasing threat of water scarcity to the Federation.
• The House took up a Calling Attention Notice (CAN) regarding maltreatment of a female PIA passenger, her sisters and daughters at Benazir International Airport, Islamabad by lady officer of FIA and its staff.
• Another CAN on high electricity traffic for new power projects was deferred due to the ministerial absence.
• The House discussed a motion under Rule 60 regarding the disagreement of FBR with the case of promoting the pioneer industry of engineering sector forwarded by the government to FBR.
• The House passed two motions under Rule 194 (1) to extend the presentation period of as many reports.
• Ten out of 32 Starred Questions appearing on the agenda were taken up. In addition, lawmakers asked 27 Supplementary Questions. The Chair gave a ruling to serve the notice to Secretary Defence for not replying to questions related to his department.

Order and Institutionalization 

• The lawmakers spoke on three Points of Order consuming four minutes of the proceedings.
• Twelve Points of Public Importance were discussed for 34 minutes

Transparency

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

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This daily factsheet is based on direct observation of the Senate proceedings conducted by Free and Fair Election Network (FAFEN). Errors and omissions are excepted.