Staff Report
ISLAMABAD: Former Chairman Senate, Senator (R) Wasim Sajjad on Wednesday proposed the legislators to started thinking over direct elections of the members of the Upper House to further empower it.
Addressing the special commemorative session summoned to celebrate the golden jubilee of the Senate of Pakistan, the former Senate Chairman said he had two solutions to further improve the working of the Upper House and its role in addressing the issues of neglected and ignored segments of the country.
He said, “Firstly, our legislators should start thinking on direct elections of Senate to further improve its working. Our Senate has been formed on the American System to some extent because in the House of Representatives the members were elected on the basis of population and the Senate had equal representation of the States,” he added. The former Chairman Senate underlined that the US used to have indirect elections for electing Senate member and then later they opted for direct elections. It helped the US to further improve the system and address deprivation of small states, he added.
He said that it should be considered to think over giving more powers to the Senate but it should be ensured that the Upper House was not brought in conflict with the Lower House (National Assembly).
Secondly, he said the term of National Assembly should be reduced to four years that would have help further stable the system because after every three years there was an environment of commotion that who would get the next term.
Senator (R) Sajjad recalled that he had spent a long time in the Upper House of the Parliament.
His biggest asset, he said was his associations and contacts that he had developed across the country for being member of the Upper House.
All the senators and members of this house had witnessed this change in their lives that their associations and contacts with each other across the country had increased and brought improvement in our system.
