ISLAMABAD, October 22, 2021: The National Assembly left most of its agenda unaddressed and was prorogued sine die on Friday amidst lack of quorum, observes Free and Fair Election Network (FAFEN) in its Daily Factsheet.
Following are key observations of the proceedings during 6th (last) sitting of the 37th session:
Members’ Participation
- The National Assembly met for an hour and 16 minutes.
- The sitting started at 11:21 am against the scheduled time of 11:00 am.
- The speaker presided over the entire sitting.
- The deputy speaker was not present.
- The leaders of the house (Prime Minister) and the opposition did not attend the sitting.
- As many as 66 (19 percent) lawmakers were present at the outset and 54 (16 percent) at the adjournment of the sitting.
- The parliamentary leaders of MMAP, MQM, PML-N and BAP attended the sitting.
- Four minority lawmakers were present.
Output
- The House did not consider four bills on the agenda including the Public Procurement Regulatory Authority (Amendment) Bill, 2021; the Criminal Laws (Amendment) Bill, 2021; the Government Savings Bank (Amendment) Bill, 2021 and the Post Office National Savings Certificates (Amendment) Bill, 2021.
Representation and Responsiveness
- The House took up 15 out of 34 starred questions. In addition, lawmakers asked 18 supplementary questions.
- The House did not take up two calling attention notices regarding excessive charges of medical consultancy and treatment in private hospitals and share of the Government advertisement in the digital media for the year 2020-21.
- A motion of thanks to the President for his address to Parliament was not taken up.
Order and Institutionalization
- A PML-N lawmaker spoke on a point of order for six minutes.
- A PPPP lawmaker pointed out the quorum at 12:32 pm which was found incomplete upon counting.
- The session was prorogued sine die.
Transparency
- ‘Orders of the Day’ was available to legislators, observers and public.
- Attendance of lawmakers was available to 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