ISLAMABAD, August 22, 2016: The Punjab Assembly preferred supplementary agenda over regular legislative business on Monday, observes Free and Fair Election Network (FAFEN).

Following are some key observations of the House proceedings during first sitting of 23^rd session:

Members’ Participation in House Proceedings

• The Punjab Assembly met for an hour and 57 minutes.
• The sitting started at 1557 hours against the scheduled time of 1400 hours.
• The Speaker presided over the entire sitting while the Deputy Speaker was also present.
• The Chief Minister did not attend the sitting.
• The Leader of the Opposition attended the sitting for an hour and 44 minutes.
• Thirty MPAs (8%) were present at the outset and 37 (10%) at the adjournment of the sitting.
• The parliamentary leader of PPPP attended the sitting.
• Three minority members were present.

Output

• Moved by the Leader of the Opposition, the House adopted a supplementary resolution condemning the incident of terrorism in Quetta earlier this month.
• Moved by the Minister for Law and Parliamentary Affairs, the House adopted another supplementary resolution offering condolences on the death of social worker Abdul Sattar Edhi.
• The House did not take up three ordinances appearing on the agenda.
• Chairpersons of the Standing Committees on Home Affairs, Labour & Human Resource and Finance presented reports of their committees on Bill No. 26/2016, Bill No. 9/2016 and Bill No. 28/2016 respectively.

Representation and Responsiveness

• As many as four out of 13 Starred Questions were responded to on the floor of the House while seven others were disposed of due to the absence of the movers and two were deferred. The lawmakers also asked 13 Supplementary Questions.
• The House took up a Calling Attention Notice moved by a PML lawmaker regarding the murder of a child.
• The House referred three Privilege Motions of a PTI lawmaker to the relevant committee.

Order and Institutionalization

• The lawmakers spoke on six Points of Order consuming nine minutes of the proceedings.
• The Opposition parties staged a walkout for 11 minutes against the target killing of a PTI worker in Lahore.
• A PTI lawmaker pointed out the quorum at 1724 hours leading to the ringing of bells for five minutes. The proceedings resumed after completion of quorum on second headcount after the bells.

Transparency

• ‘Orders of the Day’ was available to the legislators, observers and public.
• Information on Members’ attendance is available on Punjab Assembly’s website.

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The daily factsheet is based on direct observation of the Punjab Assembly proceedings conducted by PATTAN Development Organization – a member organization of FAFEN. Errors and omissions are excepted.