ISLAMABAD, January 14, 2016: The National Assembly did not take up more than half of the agenda items appearing on ‘Orders of the Day’ on Thursday amidst suspension due to lack of quorum during tenth sitting of 28^th session, says Free and Fair Election Network (FAFEN).

Following are some key observations of the House proceeding:

Members’ Participation in House Proceedings

• The National Assembly met for three hours.
• The proceeding of the House remained suspended for 51 minutes due to lack of quorum.
• The sitting started at 1035 hours against its scheduled time of 1030 hours.
• The Speaker presided over the sitting for 83 minutes while a member of the Panel of Chairpersons presided over the rest of the proceeding.
• The Prime Minister was not present.
• The Leader of the Opposition attended the sitting for 24 minutes.
• Eight Federal Ministers attended the sitting.
• 25 MNAs (7%) were present at outset and 106 (31%) at adjournment of the sitting.
• The parliamentary leaders of PkMAP, PML-F, QWP-S, JI, APML and AMLP were present.
• Seven minority members were present.

Output

• The House deferred for the second time the introduction of the National University of Sciences and Technology (Amendment) Bill, 2016 on request of the minister in-charge.
• The House passed the Islamabad Subordinate Judiciary Service Tribunal Bill, 2015 and the Federal Judicial Academy (Amendment) Bill, 2015. These bills were moved by the Minister for Climate Change on behalf of the Minister for Information, Broadcasting & National Heritage.
• Chairman Standing Committee on Finance, Revenue, Economic Affairs, Statistics and Privatization presented two reports of the committee on the Income Tax (Amendment) Bill, 2015 and the Income Tax (Second Amendment) Bill, 2015. The House passed with majority vote a motion seeking to condone the delay in presentation of the report.
• Chairman Standing Committee on Railways presented the Periodical Report of the Committee for the period from January, 2015 to June, 2015.

Representation and Responsiveness

• The House took up three out of 34 starred questions appearing on agenda. The members asked 2 supplementary questions as well.
• The government replied to 17 out of 21 unstarred questions appearing on agenda. The Question Hour continued only for 11 minutes.
• The Calling Attention Notice regarding deforestation was deferred on the request of the concerned minister.
• The Federal Minister for Petroleum & Natural Resources gave statement over a Calling Attention Notice regarding lack of information about LNG deal.

Order and Institutionalization

• Twenty lawmakers spoke on Points of Order consuming 52 minutes of the proceeding. They discussed the issues relating to attack on media, deaths in Thar and the business of the House.
• A PPPP lawmaker pointed out the lacking quorum during the Question Hour which led to the suspension of the proceeding for 51 minutes.
• The members belonging to PTI protested on floor of the House against the remarks of a minister on the party’s Chairman.

Transparency

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

 To download the factsheet, click here for English version – click here for Urdu version

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This daily factsheet is based on direct observation of the National Assembly proceeding conducted by Free and Fair Election Network (FAFEN). Errors and omissions are excepted