ISLAMABAD, December 21, 2018: The National Assembly was prorogued sine die on Friday after addressing its agenda partially and adopting a resolution to protect children’s rights, says Free and Fair Election Network (FAFEN) in its Daily Factsheet.

Following are key observations of the House proceedings during eighth (last) sitting of the sixth session:

Members’ Participation

• The Assembly met for an hour and 58 minutes.
•  The sitting started at 1055 hours behind the scheduled time of 1030 hours.
• The Speaker chaired the sitting for 22 minutes while the Deputy Speaker chaired the rest of the proceedings.
• The Leader of the House (Prime Minister) did not attend the sitting.
• The Leader of the Opposition attended the sitting for 40 minutes. He and another PML-N lawmaker were released from jail custody to attend the House proceedings on production orders issued by the Speaker,
• As many as 44 lawmakers (13%) were present at the outset and 129 (38%) at the adjournment of the sitting.
• The parliamentary leaders of PPPP, BNP-M, PML-N and PML attended the sitting.
• As many as six out of 10 minority lawmakers were present.

 Output

• Tabled by Minister of State for Parliamentary Affairs, the House adopted a resolution affirming the government’s resolve to ensure protection of child rights, and take steps to remove malnutrition and provide extra care during first 1000 days of a baby.
• The government introduced the the Islamabad High Court (Amendment) Bill, 2018 and the ICT Rights of Persons with Disability Bill, 2018. Both bills were referred to the relevant standing committees.

Representation and Responsiveness

• The House did not address two Calling Attention Notices and Motion of Thanks about Presidential Address to the Parliament.
• The House took up five out of 34 Starred Questions for answers by the government. The lawmakers asked 14 supplementary questions as well.

Order and Institutionalization 

• As many as eight lawmakers spoke on Points of Order (POs) consuming 40 minutes (34%) of the proceedings’ time.
• The lawmakers belonging to opposition party PML-N protested for five minutes during the proceedings against the remarks of Federal Minister of Communications about the party’s leadership.
• The House was prorogued sine die.

 Transparency

• Orders of the Day was available to the legislators, observers and public.
• Attendance of lawmakers is available on the National Assembly’s website.

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