ISLAMABAD, January 31, 2017: The Punjab Assembly adopted three Private Members’ resolutions and referred two bills to relevant committees while deferring seven Adjournment Motions and four Zero Hour Notices, observes Free and Fair Election Network (FAFEN) on Tuesday.
Following are key observations of the House proceedings during seventh sitting of 26th session:
Members’ Participation
- The Punjab Assembly met for two hours and three minutes.
- The sitting started at 1131 hours against the scheduled time of 1000 hours.
- The Speaker presided over the entire sitting while the Deputy Speaker was not present.
- The Chief Minister did not attend the sitting.
- The Leader of the Opposition attended the sitting for 39 minutes.
- Twenty-seven MPAs (7%) were present at outset and 21 (5%) at adjournment of the sitting.
- The parliamentary leaders of JI and PML-Z attended the sitting.
- Five minority members were present.
Output
- The House referred the Punjab Land Preservation (Amendment) Bill 2016 and the Punjab Animals Slaughter Control (Amendment) Bill 2016 to the relevant standing committees. These bills were introduced by PML-N and PTI lawmakers respectively.
- The House adopted three Private Members’ resolutions urging the government to set up an official website on Quaid-e-Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah, ban video games centres and reserve Nasir Bagh for protest demonstrations.
- The Standing Committees on Services & General Administration and Privileges presented their reports before the House while six committees were granted two months’ extension for presentation of their reports.
Representation and Responsiveness
- As many as 13 out of 14 Starred Questions were responded to by the government during Question Hour while a question was disposed of due to the absence of mover. The lawmakers also asked 20 supplementary questions.
- The House deferred seven Adjournment Motions submitted by PML-N, PTI, and PML lawmakers.
- The House deferred four Zero Hour Notices as well.
Order and Institutionalization
- The lawmakers spoke on 17 Points of Order consuming 18 minutes of the proceedings.
- Entire Opposition staged a token walkout for five minutes against Hafiz Saeed’s preventive detention.
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.