Second phase of Senate reforms begins

ISLAMABAD: With the completion of the first phase of the Senate Chairman Mian Raza Rabbani’s concept of Restoration of the Majesty and Transparency in parliament, the monitoring and evaluation process of the first phase reform has been started to remove the shortcomings and bottlenecks before the start of the second phase of reforms.
According to sources, the monitoring and evolution process will continue for two months in which the first phase will be evaluated by focusing on the shortcomings and bottlenecks that come in the way of the first phase of reforms and addressing these problems to streamline the system before the start of the second phase.
Raza Rabbani was working on the evolution process of his initiative and had conducted the whole series of the meetings to evaluate the first phase. When contacted, Raza Rabbani told ‘The News’ that the evaluation of the first phase had been started and it would take two months to evaluate the reforms in the first phase.
He said that he wanted to introduce reforms to strengthen parliament and restore its majesty. “The reforms only succeeded when there is a continuation of policy decisions as it was being followed in the West where people and governments come and go but the policies continue,” he said.
The first point of reforms focus on public petitions as the Senate rules provide for public petitions on any matter connected with the business pending before the House or a committee or any matter of general public interest, however, no mechanism was in place for filing and processing the said petitions.
On the directions of the Senate chairman, drop box on the Senate website has been created where the people will be able to file petitions on public issues so that same can be taken up in the Senate and can also be referred to the Senate Standing Committees, as the case may be.
The public petition process allows ordinary citizens of the country to have direct access to the Senate and participate in the political process. It can raise the awareness and put issues on the agenda which might not otherwise be considered by parliament. It can also facilitate Senate’s intervention in addressing issues and problems of public importance.
Second, the committee of the whole House, under which, the Committee of the Whole has the entire membership of the House of Commons sitting as a committee. The Senate rules did not provide for this significant International Parliamentary Practice, therefore, the Senate rules have been amended to provide for conversion of the House into Committee (Committee of the Whole House), on issues of national importance, with the power to require the attendance of any person or summon production of papers, record from any division, department, autonomous body, semi-autonomous body or organisation, or examine such persons on oath or solemn affirmation, or invite or summon any person to give evidence in relation to any matter under its consideration, the entire House will be converted.
The third point of the reform package is presence of senior officials during the Senate sitting as an attendance register has been placed outside the official gallery for the purpose of marking of attendance by the officials/officers of the ministries/divisions business of which will be on the orders of the day. In case of any defiance by the ministries/divisions in this respect, it shall be treated as breach of privilege of the House which shall be dealt with accordingly.
Fourth, the mechanism for implementation of directions/recommendation given by the House and the committee as there have been serious concerns amongst the members regarding non-implementation of directions/ recommendations given by the House and its committees.
To address this issue, the Senate rules have been amended to provide for that ministers concerned shall, after every three months, appear before the House and make reports on all matters referred by the House and recommendations made by committees.
Fifth is about the discussion on reports laid in the House as the Senate rules explicitly provide for discussion and further treatment of reports laid in the House in pursuance of constitutional and other statutory provisions, however, these provisions were never invoked.
The Senate chairman has given directions that in future all such reports shall be discussed in the House and recently the report of Council of Common Interest (2012-2013) was discussed at length in the Senate and members also made recommendations.
Sixth, relating to reports on issues of public issues as specific time has been allocated by the Senate chairman for raising matters of urgent public importance by the members. The Senate chairman gives directions to the minister concerned for resolution of such issues and practice has been developed that ministers apprise the House on steps taken in this regard on the very next sitting of the Senate.
Seventh, relating to self imposed discipline which was being implemented as the Senate chairman decided to start the House proceedings exactly at the announced scheduled time he wrote a letter to the members in this regard as well as to follow the rules for asking the supplementary questions and to stop use/misuse of points of order for raising issues of public importance. The response of the members has been very good and they have not only been present at the start of the session but following other rules and parliamentary practices.
Eighth, reforms relating to calling attention notice as the calling attention notice is an important tool to draw the attention of the government towards matters of urgent public importance. The Senate rules provided for only one calling attention notice during a sitting of the Senate, however, keeping in view the significance of this tool, Senate rules have been amended to provide for two calling attention notices in one sitting.
The last point of the reforms package is formation of the parliamentary committees as the standing committees and functional committees including finance committee of the Senate and house committee have been constituted.
Furthermore, committee on devolution process has been re-constituted along with confirmation of nominations for parliamentary committee on judges appointment in the superior courts and parliamentary committee on electoral reforms.