ISLAMABAD, September 12, 2019: The Provincial Assembly of the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) passed two government bills amidst opposition’s protest and adopted six supplementary resolutions after suspension of the rules, observes Free and Fair Election Network (FAFEN) in its Daily Factsheet on Thursday.
Following are some key observations of the House proceedings during fifth sitting of eighth session:
Members’ Participation
- The Assembly met for three hours and 25 minutes; however, the proceedings remained suspended for 30 minutes due to prayer break.
- The sitting started at 1535 hours against the scheduled time of 1500 hours.
- The Speaker presided over the entire sitting while the Deputy Speaker was also present.
- The Leader of the House did not attend the sitting.
- The Leader of the Opposition attended the entire sitting.
- Forty legislators (26%) were present at the outset and 35 (24%) at the end of the sitting.
- Parliamentary Leader of ANP attended the proceedings.
- All four minority lawmakers were present.
Output
- The House passed two government bills including the KP Khasadar Force Bill, 2019 and the KP Levies Force Bill, 2019.
- The Minister for Law introduced the KP Code of Civil Procedure (Amendment) Bill, 2019 and the Code of Criminal Procedure (Khyber Pakhtunkhwa) (Amendment) Bill, 2019 in the House.
- The House adopted six supplementary resolutions to ensure protection to human right activists, recruit psychologists in schools and colleges, construct Jandool Grid Station in Dir and Swat Phase-II Expressway, give share to tribal districts in NFC and abolish Toll Plaza in Mansehra. These resolutions were sponsored by PTI, ANP, MMAP and PML-N lawmakers.
Representation and Responsiveness
- The House took up five out of six starred questions while one question lapsed due to absence of the mover. In addition, the lawmakers asked nine supplementary questions.
- The Chair did not admit an adjournment Motion of MMAP lawmaker for debate which was regarding violation of Private Schools Regulatory Authority’s (PRSA) Rules and Acts by its Managing Director.
- A PTI lawmaker’s Privilege Motion was referred to the concerned committee which was about inappropriate behavior of District Health Officer Charsada with him.
Order and Institutionalization
- The entire opposition staged a walkout from the proceedings of the House for eight minutes against hasty approval of legislative proposals.
- The House was adjourned to meet again on September 23, 2019 (Monday) at 1400 hours.
Transparency
- ‘Orders of the Day’ was available to the legislators, observers and others.
- The attendance of lawmakers was not available to the observers and media.
This daily factsheet is based on direct observation of the KP Assembly proceeding conducted by United Rural Development Organization (URDO) – a member organization of FAFEN. Errors and omissions are excepted