ISLAMABAD, October 3, 2015: The Balochistan Assembly passed two bills amid low attendance of lawmakers during the second sitting of its ongoing 21st session on Saturday, says Free and Fair Election Network (FAFEN).
The sitting started 30 minutes behind the schedule with 20 lawmakers (31%) present at the start and 28 (43%) at the time of adjournment.
The bills passed by the House included the Balochistan University of Information Technology, Engineering and Management Sciences Quetta (Amendment) Bill 2014 and Balochistan University of Engineering and Technology Khuzdar (Amendment) Bill, 2104. Earlier, the House witnessed presentation of Special Committee’s report on these bills.
Following are some key observations of the assembly proceedings:
Members’ Participation in House Proceedings
- The Balochistan Assembly met for forty minutes.
- The sitting started at 1130 hours against the scheduled time of 1100 hours.
- Twenty lawmakers (31%) were present at the start and maximum 28 (43%) at the end of the sitting.
- The entire sitting was chaired by Deputy Speaker.
- The Chief Minister and the Opposition Leader attended the entire sitting.
- Parliamentary leaders of PkMAP, PML-N, ANP and JUI-F attended the sitting.
- One minority member attended the sitting.
- Four members applied for leave.
Output
- The House passed two bills including the Balochistan University of Information Technology, Engineering and Management Sciences Quetta (Amendment) Bill 2014 and Balochistan University of Engineering and Technology Khuzdar (Amendment) Bill, 2104
Order and Institutionalization
- Six points of order consumed 15 minutes of the sitting.
- No protests/boycotts/walkouts were witnessed.
Transparency
- ‘Orders of the Day’ was available to the legislators, observers and others.
- Information on legislators’ attendance was not available to the observers and the public.
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This daily factsheet is based on direct observation of the Balochistan Assembly proceedings conducted by Center for Peace and Development (CPD) – a member organization of FAFEN. Errors and omissions are excepted