ISLAMABAD, March 16, 2018: The Punjab Assembly unanimously passed a resolution on Friday condemning the incidents of harassment of Pakistani diplomats in India, observes Free and Fair Election Network (FAFEN) in its Daily Factsheet.
Following are key observations of the House proceedings during 28th and last sitting of the 34th session:
Members’ Participation
- The Punjab Assembly met for an hour and 49 minutes.
- The sitting started at 1037 hours against the scheduled time 0900 hours.
- The Speaker presided over the entire sitting while the Deputy Speaker was not present.
- The Leader of the House (Chief Minister) did not attend the sitting.
- The Leader of the Opposition attended the sitting for an hour and 17 minutes.
- As many as 32 MPAs (9%) were present at outset and 38 (10%) at adjournment of the sitting.
- None of the parliamentary leaders was present during the proceedings.
- As many as six minority lawmakers attended the sitting.
Output
- The House did not take up the legislative business appearing on Orders of the Day.
- The House unanimously adopted a supplementary resolution condemning the incidents of harassment of Pakistani diplomats in India.
Representation and Responsiveness
- As many as five out of 16 Starred Questions were answered during the proceedings while three questions were disposed of due to absence of the concerned lawmakers. The lawmakers asked 13 supplementary questions as well. The proceedings remained suspended for 25 minutes during the Question Hour due to absence of the Secretary of concerned government department.
Order and Institutionalization
- The lawmakers raised 22 Points of Order consuming 20 minutes of the proceedings.
- The opposition lawmakers staged a five-minute protest and a two-minute walkout against the Parliamentary Secretary for Specialized Healthcare terming his behavior “unparliamentary”.
- The House was prorogued sine die.
Transparency
- ‘Orders of the Day’ was available to the legislators, observers and public.
- Information on Members’ attendance is available on Punjab Assembly’s website.
The daily factsheet is based on direct observation of the Punjab Assembly proceedings conducted by PATTAN Development Organization – a member organization of FAFEN. Errors and omissions are regretted.