ISLAMABAD, March 21, 2017: The National Assembly (NA) passed two government bills, including a Constitutional Amendment Bill relating to the revival of military courts and adopted a resolution to set up a parliamentary committee for the oversight of these courts, observes Free and Fair Election Network (FAFEN) in Daily Factsheet on Tuesday.
Following are key observations of the proceedings during 12th sitting of the 40th session:
Members’ Participation
- The National Assembly met for three hours and 18 minutes.
- The sitting started at 1613 hours against the scheduled time of 1600 hours.
- The Speaker chaired the entire sitting except for eight minutes when a member of the Panel of Chairpersons presided over the proceedings. The Deputy Speaker also attended the sitting.
- The Leader of the House (Prime Minister) attended the sitting for an hour and 51 minutes.
- The Leader of the Opposition attended the sitting for three hours and five minutes.
- Seventy lawmakers (20%) were present at the outset and 186 (54%) at the adjournment of sitting.
- The parliamentary leaders of PPPP, PkMAP, ANP, JI, PML, AMLP, APML, QWP-S and PML-Z attended the sitting.
- All minority lawmakers (10) were present.
Output
- The House passed the Constitution (Twenty-eighth Amendment) Bill, 2017 with a majority vote (255), while four votes were cast against the bill. The lawmakers belonging to PkMAP and an Independent lawmaker voted against the bill while the lawmakers of JUI-F abstained from voting. Eight lawmakers spoke on the bill consuming 55 minutes.
- The House also passed the Pakistan Army (Amendment) Bill, 2017 with the majority of votes. Five lawmakers discussed the amendments proposed to the bill for 13 minutes.
- The House approved the amendments to these bills moved by Minister for Law and Justice while the amendments proposed by JUI-F, MQM and Independent lawmakers were rejected and the JI lawmaker withdrew his amendments.
- Moved by the Minister for Finance, the House adopted a resolution to set up a parliamentary committee for the oversight of military courts to be revived under the above legislation.
Order and Institutionalization
- The lawmakers did not raise any Point of Order during 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.