ISLAMABAD: After a gap of 10 days, the Senate is set to begin its new session on Friday (today) on the requisition of the opposition to discuss a number of key issues, including legality and constitutionality of ordinances, alleged political victimisation of the opposition and unprecedented price hike in the country.

The Senate, which had struggled and remained in session consecutively for 48 days from Jan 1 to Feb 17 in order to fulfil a constitutional requirement of remaining in session for a minimum of 110 days in a parliamentary year, is still short of six days to achieve the objective by March 11 as the parliamentary year of the Senate begins on March 12 every year.

Since March 12 last year, the upper house of parliament has been able to meet for 104 days. Interestingly, the number of actual sittings of the house is only 61 days as under the rules, the two-day recess sandwiched between the working days is also counted as session days.

Sources in the ruling Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) told Dawn that the government planned to hold only two sittings (on Feb 28 and March 2) of the requisitioned session to discuss the opposition-submitted agenda and then on March 3 and 4, the government will convene its own session.

The opposition had submitted a six-point agenda with their requisition notice. The agenda comprises discussions on “the legality and constitutionality of ordinances that have been laid in the National Assembly and not in the Senate as required under Article 89 of the Constitution; security and political developments in the region, especially in Occupied Kashmir; continuing political victimisation of the opposition; gas and power scarcity in the domestic and industrial sectors; the price hike resulting in unbearable burden on the common man; and devastating daily occurrences of crimes against children in Pakistan”.

Published in Dawn, February 28th, 2020