ISLAMABAD, May 23, 2018: The National Assembly on Wednesday passed four government bills including the Prevention of Trafficking in Persons Bill, 2018 aimed at ensuring measures to prevent and combat human trafficking, observes Free and Fair Election Network (FAFEN) in its Daily Factsheet.

Following are key observations of the proceedings during the 17^th sitting of the 56th session:

Members’ Participation

• The National Assembly met for two hours and 44 minutes.
•  The sitting started at 1105 hours against the scheduled time of 1100 hours.
• The Speaker presided over the sitting for 17 minutes while rests of the proceedings were chaired by the Deputy Speaker.
• The Leader of the House (Prime Minister) did not attend the sitting.
• The Opposition Leader was present for an hour and 21 minutes.
•  As many as 37 lawmakers (11%) were present at the outset and 73 (21%) at the adjournment of sitting.
• The parliamentary leaders of MQM, JI, PPPP, AJIP, APML, PML-Z and ANP attended the sitting.
• Five minority lawmakers were present.

 Output

• The House passed four government bills which were the Prevention of Trafficking in Persons Bill, 2018, the Pakistan Council of Renewable Energy Technologies Bill, 2018, the Gas Infrastructure Development Cess (Amendment) Bill, 2018 and the Legal Practitioners and Bar Councils (Amendment) Bill, 2018.
• Four other government bills on the agenda were not considered by the House while a statutory report was not presented.

Representation and Responsiveness

• The House deferred a Calling Attention Notice on the request of its mover while another notice was left unaddressed.
• All nine starred questions on the agenda were not taken up due to absence of their movers. However, their answers were considered to be laid on the table.

 Order and Institutionalization

• Lawmakers spoke on ten points of order consuming 63 minutes of the proceedings.
• A PPPP lawmaker pointed out the quorum at 1122 hours which led the suspension of the proceedings for an hour.
• MQM lawmakers walked out of the House at 1306 against the speech of Chief Minister in Sindh Assembly reportedly condemning and cursing those demanding a separate Karachi province. They did not return to the House till adjournment of the sitting at 1349 hours.
• PPPP lawmakers announced to walk out of the proceedings at 1349 hours against non-implementation of Water Accord, 1991 following which the Chair immediately adjourned the House to meet again on May 24, 2018 (Thursday) at 1100 hours.

Transparency

• Orders of the Day was available to the legislators, observers and public.
• 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