ISLAMABAD, December 24, 2012: The 3^rd sitting of the 36^th session of the Balochistan Assembly which met for a short span witnessed the passage of two treasury-backed bills.

Following the trend set in the previous sitting the house passed – the Balochistan Environmental Protection bill, 2012 and the Code of Civil Procedure (Balochistan Amendment) Bill, 2012 – with in 10 minutes.

The sitting starting seven minutes late consumed 18 minutes, where, nearly eight minutes (45% of the sitting) were consumed by speeches on seven points of order; none of the POs attracted the chairs formal ruling thus not making any contributing to the assembly output.

The Chief Minister attended the sitting whereas the Leader of the Opposition was absent. The Deputy Speaker chaired the sitting in the absence of the Speaker. None of the party heads except for those of ANP, JUI and Like Minded Group were present in the sitting.

The question hour was suspended during the sitting.

Members’ participation in House proceedings

• The Balochistan Assembly met for an 18 minutes.
• The sitting started at 1107 hours instead of the scheduled starting time of 1100 hours. The proceedings started 7 minutes late.
• As the Speaker was not present the Deputy Speaker chaired the entire sitting.
• The Chief Minister attended the entire sitting.
• The parliamentary leaders of ANP, JUI and the Like Minded Group attended the session.
• Eleven (17%) members were present at the outset while 20 (31%) members were sighted at the end of the sitting.
• None of the minorities attended the sitting.

•     Three members applied for leave.

Output

• The house passed two government bills the Balochistan Environmental Protection bill, 2012 and the Code of Civil Procedure (Balochistan Amendment) Bill, 2012.

Order and institutionalization

• Seven points of order consumed 8 minutes of the sitting time. None of the POs attracted the chairs ruling.
• There were no protests, walkouts or boycotts during the session.

 Transparency

• Orders of the day were available to legislators, observers and others.
• Information on members’ attendance was unavailable to observers and the public.

The Daily Factsheet is based on direct observation of Balochistan Assembly proceedings conducted by Center for Peace and Development (CPD), a Member organization of FAFEN.