ISLAMABAD, January 23, 2012:  The Senate met for three hours and 42 minutes during the fifth sitting of the ongoing 77^th session.

The issue of Senator’s low attendance persisted during this sitting as well. Only 15 Legislators were present at the start, while 16 were present when the sitting was adjourned.

The Quorum was visibly lacking at various stages of the sitting. However, it was not pointed out by any of the Legislators.

As an ambitious agenda was set up for the third sitting, the Upper House left most of it unaddressed.

The House adopted a Resolution calling for registering a case against the former president General (Rtd) Pervaiz Musharraf under article 6 of the constitution. This Resolution was presented as supplementary agenda.

The Leader of the House was present all through the sitting while the Leader of the Opposition did not attend.

Following are some key observations of the parliamentary business:

Members’ Participation in House Proceedings

• The Senate met for three hours and 42 minutes.
• The sitting started at 1625 hours instead of the scheduled starting time of 1600 hours. The House proceedings started 25 minutes late.
• The Chairman presided over the entire sitting.
• The Leader of the House attended the entire sitting while the Leader of the Opposition was not present.
• The Parliamentary Leaders of the PML, MQM, PMLF, PKMAP, NP, JI and the PMLN attended the sitting while the leaders of the BNPA, PPPS and the ANP were absent.
• Fifteen Senators (15%) were present at the start of the sitting while 16 (16%) were there when the sitting was adjourned. A maximum of 27 Members (27%) were present during one point of the sitting.

Representation and Responsiveness

• There was no Question and Answer session as Monday’s sitting was a Private Members Day.
• One out of eight Resolutions appearing on the Agenda was rejected, while the remaining seven were not taken up.
• The House adopted a Resolution calling for registering a case against the former president General (Rtd) Pervaiz Musharraf under article 6 of the constitution. This Resolution was presented as supplementary agenda.

Output

• All six Bills appearing on the Orders of the Day were not taken up by the House.

Order and Institutionalization

• No Point of Order was raised during the sitting.
• ANP Members staged a walkout in protest against not being granted the permission to speak on the adopted Resolution. The walkout lasted seven minutes.

Transparency

• Orders of the Day were available to Legislators, observers and others.
• Information on Members’ attendance was unavailable to observers and the public.
• The Quorum was visibly lacking at various stages during the sitting. However, this was not pointed out by any of the Senators.

After successfully observing proceedings of the National Assembly, the Free and Fair Election Network (FAFEN) has started the observation of the provincial assemblies – Sindh, Punjab, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan – and the Senate.  This daily factsheet is based on FAFEN’s direct observation of the fifth sitting of 77th session of the Senate. These reports will be released on the day the sittings are held to provide media and other interested stakeholders vital statistics about the Assembly proceedings to encourage informed public discourse on its performance.

The Daily Factsheet is based on direct observation of the Senate proceedings conducted by Center for Peace and Development Initiatives (CPDI), a member organization of FAFEN