ISLAMABAD, June 2, 2016: The Senate passed the Constitutional Amendment and witnessed introduction of two government bills on Thursday during first sitting of its 249^th session, says Free and Fair Election Network (FAFEN).

Following are some key observations of the House proceeding:

Members’ Participation in House Proceedings

• The Senate met for five hours and 30 minutes. .
• The sitting started at the schedule time of 1030 hours.
• The Chairman presided over the entire sitting.
• The Deputy Chairman was not present.
• The Leader of the House attended the entire sitting and the Opposition Leader was present for four hours and 45 minutes.
• Prime Minister did not attend the sitting.
• 27 (26%) senators were present at the start and 13 (12%) at the time of adjournment.
• Parliamentary leaders of PML-N, PkMAP, BNP-M, NP, PPPP, MQM, PTI, PML, ANP and JI were present.
• Three minority members attended the sitting.

Output

• Introduced by Minister for Law and Justice, the House passed the Constitution (Twenty-second Amendment) Bill, 2016. It took 133 minutes to pass this bill as lawmakers spoke about it for 79 minutes while the remaining time was consumed in consideration of its clauses and voting on them.
• Minister for Finance introduced the Credit Bureaus (Amendment) Bill, 2016 and the Securities and Exchange Commission of Pakistan (Amendment) Bill, 2016. Both bills were referred to the relevant committee for further deliberations.
• Chairman Senate Standing Committee on Finance presented three reports. The first one was about demand No.18 of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, the other related to budgetary allocation and its utilization in respect of various departments while the third one was regarding privatization of Heavy Electrical Complex (HEC).

Representation and Responsiveness

• The House took up two Calling Attention Notices (CANs). The first CAN was the about ranking Pakistan’s Higher Education system at No. 50 while other notice was regarding sale of sub-standard products at Utility Stores.
• Seventeen out of 27 starred questions appearing on the agenda were taken by the House. In addition, the lawmakers also asked 45 supplementary questions.
• The House passed two separate motions to extend the presentation period of reports regarding the Oil and Gas Regulatory Authority (Amendment) Bill, 2015 and representation of three provinces and FATA in Governing Council of Pakistan Bureau of Statistics.
• The Chair admitted an Adjournment Motion (AM) to discuss the situation after drone strike on May 22, 2016, in Balochistan reportedly resulting into killing of Mulla Akhtar Mansoor. Later, the Chairman Senate and nine other lawmakers spoke on it for 65 minutes while Advisor to Prime Minister on Foreign Affairs gave a statement on it for 13 minutes.
• Two other AMs also appeared on the agenda but the Chair did not admit it. The first AM about discrepancies involved in the distribution mechanism of DISCOs was not admitted for being in contravention with rules while the other about environmental impact of the proposed construction of cricket stadium at Shakarparian was termed as a repeated issue.

Order and Institutionalization

• An ANP lawmaker walked out of the House for five minutes over his opinion about mistakes in various clauses of the Constitution (Twenty-second Amendment) Bill, 2016.

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