ISLAMABAD, October 18, 2016: Starting 46 minutes behind the schedule, the 10^th sitting of 21^st session of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) Assembly was adjourned due to lack of quorum, says Free and Fair Election Network on Tuesday.

The sitting began with just 25 lawmakers (20%) present at the start and 21 (17%) at the time of adjournment.

Following are some key observations of the Assembly proceedings:

Members’ Participation

• The KP Assembly met for 56 minutes.
• The sitting started at 1546 hours against the scheduled time of 1500 hours.
• 25 lawmakers (20%) were present at the start and 21 (17%) at the end of the sitting. A maximum of 30 members (24%) were observed to be present at one point of the sitting.
• The Speaker presided over the entire sitting while the Deputy Speaker was also present.
• The Chief Minister did not attend the sitting whereas the Opposition Leader was present for 46 minutes.
• Parliamentary leaders of QWP and JI were present.
• One minority member attended the sitting.
• Fifteen members applied for leave.

Output

• The Provincial Minister for Health introduced the KP Prohibition of Tobacco and Protection of Non-Smokers Health Bill, 2016 that was referred to the Select Committee for further deliberations.
• Two other bills, including the KP Commission on the Status of Women Bill, 2016 and KP Lissaail-e-Wal Mahroom Foundation (Amendment) Bill, 2016 remained unaddressed due to early adjournment of the sitting.
• The House extended the duration of Mines, Minerals Development Organization Ordinance 2016.

Representation and Responsiveness

• Only one Starred Question appeared on the agenda that was taken up by the House. However, the lawmakers expressed their concern over not including more starred questions on the list of agenda.
• The House did not take up two Calling Attention Notices (CANs). The first CAN was dropped due to the absence of relevant minister while the other CAN was deferred over the absence of mover.

Order and Institutionalization

• A JUI-F lawmaker pointed out the quorum at 1640 hours, forcing the Chair to order for the bells to be rung for two minutes. Later on upon counting, less than 25 percent of the lawmakers were found to be present in the House, which led to the adjournment of the sitting till Friday.
• Two Points of Order consumed 15 minutes of the sitting.

Transparency

• ‘Orders of the Day’ was available to the legislators, observers and other stakeholders.
•  The attendance of lawmakers was not available to the observers and media.

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This daily factsheet is based on direct observation of the KP Assembly proceedings conducted by United Rural Development Organization (URDO) – a member organization of FAFEN. Errors and omissions are excepted