ISLAMABAD, December 20, 2016: The National Assembly witnessed presentation of Second Interim Report of Parliamentary Committee on Electoral Reforms on Tuesday, observes Free and Fair Election Network (FAFEN) in Daily Factsheet.
The session was prorogued sine die without taking up the Private Members’ business.
Following are key observations of the proceedings during fifth and last sitting of the 38th session:
Members’ Participation
- The National Assembly met for two hours and 13 minutes.
- The proceedings remained suspended for an hour due to lack of quorum.
- The sitting started at 1618 hours against the scheduled time of 1600 hours.
- The Speaker presided over the entire sitting while the Deputy Speaker was not present.
- The Leader of the House (Prime Minister) and the Leader of the Opposition did not attend the sitting.
- Thirty-nine lawmakers (11%) were present at outset while 115 (33%) at adjournment of the sitting.
- The parliamentary leaders of PPPP, PkMAP, JI, BNP-A, ANP, PML-Z, AMLP and APML attended the sitting.
- Five minority members were present.
Output
- The Minister for Finance moved the House to take up Government Business on Private Members’ Day. The motion was carried.
- Chairman Parliamentary Committee on Electoral Reforms presented the Second Interim Report of the Committee. He spoke on the report for 14 minutes.
- A member of the Standing Committee on Climate Change presented the report of the committee on the Pakistan Climate Change Bill, 2016.
Representation and Responsiveness
- The House did not take up the Calling Attention Notices and the Motions under Rule 256 appearing on Orders of the Day.
Order and Institutionalization
- The lawmakers spoke on 11 Points of Order consuming 40 minutes of the proceedings. They spoke on issues of giving control of the regulatory bodies to the government ministries.
- A PTI lawmaker identified the quorum at 1632 hours that led to the suspension of proceedings for an hour.
- The lawmakers belonging to PML-N and PTI protested against each other by chanting slogans, consuming two minutes of the proceedings.
Transparency
- ‘Orders of the Day’ was available to the legislators, observers and public.
- The attendance of lawmakers was available to the media and observers.
This daily factsheet is based on direct observation of the National Assembly proceedings conducted by Free and Fair Election Network (FAFEN). Errors and omissions are excepted.