ISLAMABAD, May 18, 2021: The Punjab Assembly adopted a resolution on Tuesday condemning Israeli atrocities against the people of Palestine, observes Free and Fair Election Network (FAFEN) in its Daily Factsheet on Tuesday.

Following are key observations of the House proceedings during the first sitting of the 32nd session:

Members’ Participation

• The House met for two hours and 28 minutes.
• The sitting started at 03:56 pm against the scheduled time of 02:00 pm.
• The speaker chaired the sitting for an hour and 57 minutes while the rest of the sitting was presided over by a member of panel of chairpersons.
• The deputy speaker was absent.
• The leader of the House (chief minister) and the opposition leader did not attend the sitting.
• As many as 51 MPAs (14 percent) were present at the outset and 37 (ten percent) at the adjournment of the sitting.
• The parliamentary leaders of PPPP and Pakistan Rah-e-Haq (PRH) attended the sitting.
• Two out of eight minority lawmakers attended the sitting.

Output

• The House passed the Punjab Compulsory Teaching of the Holy Quran (Amendment) Bill 2021. As many as three lawmakers – two of PML-N and one of PML – spoke on it for 11 minutes.
• Tabled by Minister for Law, the House adopted a supplementary resolution condemning Israeli atrocities against the people of Palestine. Six lawmakers – PML-N (three) and one each of PPPP, PRH, and PTI – spoke on it for 51 minutes.
• The House did not take up another five resolutions appearing on agenda.

Representation and Responsiveness

• The House took up three out of 29 starred questions related to Housing, Urban Development and Public Health Engineering Department. In addition, the lawmakers asked eight supplementary questions.
• The House did not consider four zero hour notices on the agenda.
• The House deferred an adjournment motion (AM) on the request of the minister for Law which was related to health sector.

Order and Institutionalization

• Two lawmakers spoke on points of order for six minutes.
• The parliamentary leader of PPPP walked out from the House for three minutes when a PTI lawmaker interrupted him during his speech on the supplementary resolution.
• The House was adjourned to meet again on Friday, May 21, 2021 at 09:00 am.

Transparency

• ‘List of Business’ was available on Punjab Assembly’s website.
• Information on Members’ attendance is available on Punjab Assembly’s website.

---

This daily factsheet is based on direct observation of the Punjab Assembly proceedings conducted by SANGAT Development Foundation, a member organization of FAFEN. Errors and omissions are excepted.