ISLAMABAD, February 9, 2012: The National Assembly did not take up the Constitution (Twentieth Amendment) Bill, 2012 during its seventh sitting of the ongoing session on Thursday.

The sitting spanning two hours was marked by low attendance with 110 Legislators present at the start and 52 were there when the sitting adjourned.

The Prime Minister attended the sitting for 41 minutes while the Leader of the Opposition was not present. The parliamentary leaders of the PML, PPPS, MQM, PMLF and NPP were present.

Members’ participation in House proceedings

• The National Assembly met for two hours.
• The sitting started at 1830 Hours against the scheduled starting time of 1700 hours. The proceedings started late by 90 minutes.
• A Member of Panel of Chairpersons chaired the sitting for 37 minutes while the remaining time was presided over by the Deputy Speaker.
• The Prime Minister attended the sitting for 41 minutes while the Leader of the Opposition was absent.
• The Parliamentary Leaders of the PML, PPPS, MQM, PMLF and NPP were present while those of MMAP, ANP and BNPA were not present.
• The Chief Whips of PPPP, ANP, PMLN and MQM were present while those of PML, PMLF and MMAP were absent.
• A total of 110 (33%) Members were present at the outset of the sitting, while 52 (16%) Members at the end of the sitting.
• Four Members applied for leave to be absent from the sitting.
• Ten minority Members were present during the sitting.

Representation and Responsiveness

• The House took up two Calling Attention Notices (CANs) which appeared on the Orders of the Day.
• The first CAN, moved by five MQM Members – all males- was about “excessive electricity bills throughout the country”, which was directed to Ministry of Water and Power.
• Moved by two MMAP Members and an Independent Member, the second notice was about “abundance of obscene websites on the internet”. It was directed to the Cabinet Secretariat.
• Out of the 25 questions to be taken up during the Question Hour, only 12 were put up and responded by the relevant ministries.
• Seventeen supplementary questions were raised during the sitting.

Output

• The Constitution (Twentieth Amendment) Bill, 2012 was not taken up.

Order and institutionalization

• Nineteen Points of Order were raised, consuming 41 minutes of the sitting. However, none of the Points of Order attracted the Chair’s formal ruling.
• There were no instances of protests, boycotts or walkouts.

Transparency

• Orders of the Day were available to Legislators, observers and others.
• Information on Members’ attendance was unavailable to observers and the public.

The Daily Factsheet is based on direct observation of National Assembly proceedings conducted by Centre for Peace and Development Initiatives (CPDI), a Member organization of FAFEN.