05/13/2020 - 14:25
- Clarín.com
- Politics
The Senate will have today the first virtual session in its history, with high-performance software and amid strong security restrictions arranged to respect the rules of social distancing that prevail throughout the country due to the coronavirus pandemic.
With the presence of Vice President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner on the premises and the senators connected virtually, the session scheduled for 2:00 p.m. should last no more than six hours to endorse around twenty decrees issued by the Executive Power to alleviate the effects of the quarantine that began on March 20.
A total of 33 senators will connect from official provincial organisms, 17 from their respective offices in the Senate of the Nation and another 21 from their private homes.
The agreed agenda includes Presidential decrees 4/20 to 8/20 and the Orders of the Day of the Bicameral Commission for Legislative Processing 13/20 to 32/20.
The agreed modality is videoconferencing through the Cisco Webex platform, which will work in an integrated way with Microsoft tools, reported Senate sources.
Prior to the start of the session, senators must enter the platform with an individual access code, which will be given to them through officials of the National Registry of Persons (RENAPER) or the Civil Registry of each province, once validated. your identity.
Officials from the National Registry of Persons or the Civil Registry of each province will be present in the different official organisms, in the offices or in the senators' authorized addresses to validate their identity with two available biometric identification technologies: fingerprinting or face comparison.
The system to be used is high-performance software, ranked between the first and second best systems according to attributes in world rankings, such as that of the United States National Institute of Standards and Technology, as reported.
Once the identity has been validated, the presence of each senator and senator may be counted on the board of the venue, located in the Legislative Palace, for the purposes of computing a quorum.
The duration of the session was stipulated in a maximum of six hours in order to guarantee the security and technical quality of the debate in remote mode.
For the use of the word, it was agreed that it will be distributed in such a way that the political sectors are represented in the same proportion as within the Chamber, which will be established by the full body at the proposal of the blocks.
The time established for each of the blocks will be distributed by them among its members.
Prior to the start of the session, the Parliamentary Secretariat will have a list of speakers and the times assigned to each one.
The vote will be carried out by electromechanical means, in accordance with the provisions of article 205 of the Senate Regulations, the spokesmen said.
At the time of the vote, each senator and senator will receive a question on their device to select their answer, while on a screen the votes can be displayed and in case the system does not register any vote, it will be taken live voice.
The main benches, the pro-government Front of All and the interlocking Together for Change, agreed to include only projects related to the pandemic on the agenda for the session.
But, in addition, they must authorize the execution of virtual sessions while the quarantine lasts, as well as extend the validity of the files that will expire in a few weeks.
