ISLAMABAD, February 1, 2021: The Senate left five resolutions unaddressed on Private Members’ Day and also deferred as many bills seeking amendments in the Constitution due to low attendance of lawmakers, observers Free and Fair Election Network (FAFEN) in its Daily Factsheet on Monday.

Following are key observations of the proceedings during the fifth sitting of 306^th session:

Members’ Participation

• The Senate met for five hours.
• The sitting started at 1506 hours against the scheduled time of 1500 hours.
• The Chairman presided over the entire proceedings.
• The Deputy Chairman was not present.
• The Leader of the House attended the entire sitting.
• The Opposition Leader was not present.
• As many as 15 lawmakers (14%) were present at the outset and 12 (11%) at the adjournment of sitting.
• The parliamentary leaders of PTI, JI, PKMAP, MMAP, PPPP and MQM attended the sitting.
• Two minority lawmaker were present.

Output

• The House witnessed introduction of five bills which were referred to the relevant committees for consideration. These bills were the Code of Criminal Procedure (Amendment) Bill, 2021; the Pakistan Panel Code (Amendment) Bill, 2021; the Children (Pledging of Labour) (Amendment) Bill, 2021; the Civil Servants (Amendment) Bill, 2020 and the Service Tribunals (Amendment) Bill, 2021.
• Five private members’ resolutions appearing on the agenda were not taken up.
• The Chair deferred five bills seeking amendments in the Constitution due to low attendance of lawmakers in the House at the time of their consideration. Two-third majority is mandatory in the Senate (66 of the total membership – 104) for the approval of a bill seeking amendment in the Constitution. The deferred bills were the Constitution (Amendment) Bill, 2020 (Amendment of Article 45); the Constitution (Amendment) Bill, 2020 (Insertion of Article 25B; the Constitution (Amendment) Bill, 2020 (Amendment of Article 213); the Constitution (Amendment) Bill, 2020 (Amendment of Article 140) and the Constitution (Amendment) Bill, 2020 (Amendment of Articles 213 and 215).
• On behalf of Chairman Functional Committee on Human Rights, a member of the Committee presented report on the Torture and Custodial Death (Prevention and Punishment) Bill, 2020.
• Sponsored by a PML-N lawmaker, the House passed the Compulsory Teaching of Arabic Language Bill, 2020.
• The House passed a motion under Rule 126 (7) for consideration of the Islamabad Compulsory Vaccination and Protection of Health Workers Bill, 2020 in the joint sitting of Parliament.

Representation and Responsiveness

• The lawmakers discussed four motions under Rule 218 in the House which were about rise in air pollution levels , foreign policy of Pakistan, one month per annum recession plan for high carbon emitting industries and recent unprovoked firing by the Indian forces on the Line of Control in Azad Jammu and Kashmir.
• A motion about increasing number of incidents of kidnapping of children, child begging and child labour in ICT was not taken up.

Order and Institutionalization 

• The House was adjourned to meet again on February 4, 2021 (Thursday) at 1030 hours.

 Transparency

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

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