ISLAMABAD, November 24, 2016: The Punjab Assembly could not take up legislative business on Thursday due to lack of quorum, observes Free and Fair Election Network (FAFEN).

Following are key observations of the House proceedings during first sitting of 25^th session:

Members’ Participation

• The Punjab Assembly met for two hours and 30 minutes.
• The proceedings remained suspended for 26 minutes due to prayer break.
• The sitting started at 1626 hours against the scheduled time of 1400 hours.
• The Speaker presided over the proceedings for 40 minutes while the Deputy Speaker chaired the rest of the sitting.
• The Chief Minister did not attend the sitting.
• The Leader of the Opposition attended the sitting for an hour and 35 minutes.
• Fifty-eight lawmakers (15%) were present at outset and 50 (13%) at adjournment of the sitting.
• The parliamentary leaders of PPPP and JI attended the sitting.
• Six minority members were present.

Output

• Moved by the Minister for Law and Parliamentary Affairs, the House adopted a supplementary resolution condemning the incidents of firing at Line of Control.
• The House did not take up an ordinance and two bills appearing on Orders of the Day.
• Three standing committees presented their reports on four legislative proposals referred to them by the House.

Representation and Responsiveness

• As many as eight out of 11 Starred Questions were responded to by the government during the Question Hour while one question was deferred. The lawmakers also asked 23 Supplementary Questions.
• Provincial Law Minister responded to two Calling Attention Notices while two notices were disposed of and one was deferred.
• The House also referred two Privilege Motions to the relevant committee.

Order and Institutionalization

• The lawmakers spoke on nine Points of Order consuming 13 minutes of the proceedings.
• The entire opposition staged a token walkout for eight minutes against deteriorating law and order situation in the province.
• JI lawmaker walked out against defensive India-policy of the federal government. He did not return to the House till adjournment of the sitting.
• A PTI lawmaker pointed out quorum at 1856 hours that led to the adjournment of the sitting.

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 regretted.