ISLAMABAD, February 6, 2020: The National Assembly passed two private members’ bills and referred another three legislative proposals to the relevant Standing Committees after their introduction in the House on Thursday, observes Free and Fair Election Network in its Daily Factsheet.

Following are key observations of the House proceedings during fifth sitting of the 19^th session:

Members’ Participation

• The National Assembly met for two hours and 39 minutes.
• The sitting started at 1135 hours against the scheduled time of 1100 hours.
• The Speaker chaired the entire sitting.
• The Deputy Speaker was not present.
• The Leaders of the House (Prime Minister) and the Opposition did not attend the sitting.
• As many as 37 (10%) members were present at the outset and 38 (11%) at the adjournment of the sitting.
• The parliamentary leaders of BAP, PML-N, PPPP and PML attended the sitting.
• Six out of 10 minority lawmakers were present.

Output

• The House passed two private members’ bills namely the Pakistan Institute for Parliamentary Services (Amendment) Bill, 2019 and the National Commission on the Status of Women (Amendment) Bill, 2019.
• Three other bills introduced in the House were the Criminal Laws (Amendment) Bill, 2020 (Insertion of new section 297A & amendment in schedule II); the Islamabad Capital Territory Child Protection (Amendment) Bill, 2020 and the Criminal Laws (Amendment) Bill, 2020] (Insertion of new section 409A). All these bills were referred to the relevant committees for further deliberation.
• A bill – the Trade Organizations (Amendment) Bill, 2020 – was deferred while four bills were dropped due to the movers’ absence. The dropped bills were the Constitution (Amendment) Bill, 2020; the Benazir Income Support Programme (Amendment) Bill, 2020; the Oil and Gas Regulatory Authority (Amendment) Bill, 2020 and the Institute for Bioresources Research Bill, 2020.
• The House rejected a motion seeking leave to introduce the National Commission on the Rights of Child (Amendment) Bill, 2020 with majority votes.
• The Chair gave a ruling to forward 50 Private Members’ Bills to Legislative Council which seek parliamentary review of the rules of various departments.
• Ten reports of the Standing Committees, nine private members’ bills, eight resolutions, five motions under Rule 259, a Calling Attention Notice and proposed amendments in the Rules of Procedure and Conduct of Business in National Assembly 2007 were not taken up.

Representation and Responsiveness

• A Calling Attention Notice was deferred on the request of relevant minister which was regarding shortage and non-recruitment of staff in power companies.
• The House took up ten out of 29 starred questions and lawmakers asked 23 supplementary questions as well.

Order and Institutionalization

• Seven lawmakers spoke on points of order for 35 minutes.
• A PPPP lawmaker pointed out the quorum at 1412 hours which led to the adjournment of sitting after counting of the members present in the House.
• The House was adjourned to meet again on February 7, 2020 (Friday) at 1000 hours.

Transparency

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

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