ISLAMABAD, March 9, 2018: The National Assembly on Friday could not take up legislative agenda due to early adjournment of sitting after lack of quorum, observes Free and Fair Election Network (FAFEN) in Daily Factsheet.

Following are key observations of the proceedings during first sitting of the 54^th session:

Members’ Participation

• The National Assembly met for two hours and nine minutes.
• The sitting started at 1037 hours against the scheduled time of 1030 hours.
• The Speaker presided over the sitting for 37 minutes while rests of the proceedings were chaired by the Deputy Speaker.
• The Leaders of the House and the Opposition were not present.
• As many as 23 (7%) lawmakers were present at the outset and 34 (10%) at the adjournment of the sitting.
• The parliamentary leaders of APML, JUI-F, PkMAP, QWP and PPPP attended the sitting.
• As many as three minority members were present.

Output

• The House did not take up two government bills including the Establishment of Federal Bank for Cooperatives and Regulation of Cooperative Banking (Repeal) Bill, 2017 and the House Building Finance Corporation (Repeal) Bill, 2017.

Representation and Responsiveness

• The House addressed a Calling Attention Notice (CAN) regarding thousands of Pakistanis languishing in prisons of Saudi Arabia which was responded to by the Minister for Foreign Affairs.
• Another CAN about shortage of transformers, poles and electric meters with PESCO was not taken up.
• The House took up nine out of 28 Starred Questions for answers during the proceedings. In addition, lawmakers asked 21 supplementary questions.

Order and Institutionalization

• The lawmakers spoke on seven Points of Order (POs) consuming 55 minutes of the proceedings.
•  A PTI lawmaker pointed out the quorum at 1245 hours which led to the adjournment of the sitting
• The House was adjourned to meet again on Monday, March 12, 2018 at 1700 hours.

Transparency

• ‘Orders of the Day’ was available to the legislators, observers and public.
• Attendance of lawmakers was available to the media and observers.

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The Factsheet is based on observation of the election proceedings conducted by Free and Fair Election Network (FAFEN). Errors and omissions are excepted