Sitting No. 2 of Session No. 19 of the National Assembly held on Tuesday, February 9, 2010

The Second Sitting of Nineteenth Session of the National Assembly met for less than three hours with 31 members present at the outset, reports the Free and Fair Election Network in its Daily Factsheet on National Assembly Proceedings.

The following are some key observations of the Parliamentary Business:

Transparency

• Order of the Day was available to legislators, observers and others.
• Information on Members’ attendance was unavailable to observers and the public.
• The Quorum was visibly lacking at various stages during the sitting. However, lack of quorum was not pointed out by any of the members of National Assembly.

Members’ participation in House proceedings

• The National Assembly met for 02 hours and 47 minutes.
• The Second sitting started at 1028 Hours against the scheduled starting time of 1000 hours. The House proceedings started late by 28 minutes.
• There was no break during the Second Sitting.
• The Speaker of the House was not present during the sitting. Deputy Speaker Chaired the Sitting.
• The Prime Minister was present during the sitting. However, the Leader of Opposition was absent.
• Parliamentary leaders PPPP and PPPS were present, while the leaders of PMLN, PML, MQM, MMAP, ANP, NPP, PMLF and BNPA remained absent.
• Seven Members appealed for leave to be absent from the sitting.
• A total of 38 members were present at the outset of the sitting, while a total of 97 members were present at the end of the sitting.

Representation and Responsiveness

• There were 2 Calling Attention Notices on the Order of the Day. However, the House took only one such notice. The other notice was deferred.
•  The Calling Attention Notice taken up by the house was directed to the Ministry of Interior regarding the presence of Black Waters in NWFP.

• There was no Question and Answer session in the sitting as the prerequisite two weeks have not lapsed between the two sessions.

Output

• The House took up the three bills out of which two were accepted and sent to the standing committees. 

 Order and institutionalization

• 25 Points of Order were raised. However, none of them required Speaker’s ruling.
• The House debated the Adjournment Motion on the Karachi Suicide Killings for 56 minutes. The Minister of Interior concluded the debate.
• There were no instances of boycotts, walkouts or protest during the first second sitting of the Nineteenth Session.

The Daily Factsheet is based on direct observation of the Senate proceedings conducted by Center for Peace and Development Initiatives (CPDI), a member organization of FAFEN