ISLAMABAD, March 21, 2017: The National Assembly (NA) passed two government bills, including a Constitutional Amendment Bill relating to the revival of military courts and adopted a resolution to set up a parliamentary committee for the oversight of these courts, observes Free and Fair Election Network (FAFEN) in Daily Factsheet on Tuesday.

Following are key observations of the proceedings during 12^th sitting of the 40^th session:

Members’ Participation

• The National Assembly met for three hours and 18 minutes.
• The sitting started at 1613 hours against the scheduled time of 1600 hours.
• The Speaker chaired the entire sitting except for eight minutes when a member of the Panel of Chairpersons presided over the proceedings. The Deputy Speaker also attended the sitting.
• The Leader of the House (Prime Minister) attended the sitting for an hour and 51 minutes.
• The Leader of the Opposition attended the sitting for three hours and five minutes.
• Seventy lawmakers (20%) were present at the outset and 186 (54%) at the adjournment of sitting.
• The parliamentary leaders of PPPP, PkMAP, ANP, JI, PML, AMLP, APML, QWP-S and PML-Z attended the sitting.
• All minority lawmakers (10) were present.

Output

• The House passed the Constitution (Twenty-eighth Amendment) Bill, 2017 with a majority vote (255), while four votes were cast against the bill. The lawmakers belonging to PkMAP and an Independent lawmaker voted against the bill while the lawmakers of JUI-F abstained from voting. Eight lawmakers spoke on the bill consuming 55 minutes.
• The House also passed the Pakistan Army (Amendment) Bill, 2017 with the majority of votes. Five lawmakers discussed the amendments proposed to the bill for 13 minutes.
• The House approved the amendments to these bills moved by Minister for Law and Justice while the amendments proposed by JUI-F, MQM and Independent lawmakers were rejected and the JI lawmaker withdrew his amendments.
• Moved by the Minister for Finance, the House adopted a resolution to set up a parliamentary committee for the oversight of military courts to be revived under the above legislation.

Order and Institutionalization

• The lawmakers did not raise any Point of Order during the proceedings.

Transparency

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

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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.