ISLAMABAD, November 16, 2017: The National Assembly passed the Constitutional Amendment Bill 2017 on Thursday providing for reallocation of the House seats among federating units, observes Free and Fair Election Network (FAFEN) in its Daily Factsheet.

Following are key observations of the proceedings during first sitting of the 49^th session:

 Members’ Participation

• The National Assembly met for four hours and 13 minutes while the proceedings remained suspended for 61 minutes due to prayer break.
• The sitting started at 1649 hours against the scheduled time of 1600 hours.
• The Speaker presided over the entire sitting.
• The Deputy Speaker also attended the sitting.
• The Leader of the House (Prime Minister) attended the sitting for two hours and 46 minutes.
• The Leader of the Opposition did not attend the sitting.
• As many as 112 (33%) lawmakers were present at the outset and 243 (71%) at the adjournment of the sitting.
• The parliamentary leaders of PPPP, PTI, QWP-S, ANP, APML, AJIP, BNP, MQM, AMLP, PML-Z and PkMAP attended the sitting.
• Eight minority lawmakers were present.

Output 

• The House passed the Constitution (Amendment) Bill, 2017. As many as 242 lawmakers (71% of the total membership– 342) voted in favour of the bill while one lawmaker voted against it. The bill seeks reallocation of National Assembly’s seats among federating units.
• The House rejected private lawmaker’s amendment to the bill while another amendment was withdrawn by its mover and one was not taken up due to absence of lawmaker. The chair did not allow an amendment of PPPP lawmaker.
• The House unanimously passed the Election (Amendment) Bill, 2017. The bills seeks to revive clauses of repealed elections laws relating to separate electoral rolls for citizens belonging to Ahmedi group.
• Chairman Standing Committee on Law and Justice presented report of the Committee on Law and Justice Commission of Pakistan (Amendment) Bill, 2017.
• Parliamentary Secretary for Finance presented the annual report of the Board of Directors of the State Bank of Pakistan on the State of Pakistan’s Economy for the year 2016-17.

Representation and Responsiveness

• The House took a Calling Attention Notice (CAN) regarding the load-shedding in sectors G-6/1-2 and G-7/2-4 Islamabad.
• Another CAN about tree-cutting in Islamabad was not taken up.

Order and Institutionalization

• The lawmakers raised 14 Points of Order consuming 79 minutes of the proceedings.

Transparency

• ‘Orders of the Day’ was available to the legislators, observers and public.
• Information on Members’ attendance is available on the National Assembly website.

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This daily factsheet is based on direct observation of the National Assembly’s proceedings, conducted by the Free and Fair Election Network (FAFEN). Errors and omissions are except