ISLAMABAD, October 26, 2021: The Punjab Assembly referred four private members’ bills to committees after their introduction in the House and adopted one resolution on Tuesday, observes Free and Fair Election Network (FAFEN) in its Daily Factsheet.

Following are key observations of the House proceedings during the first sitting of 36th session:

Members’ Participation

• The House met for 33 minutes.
• The sitting started at 01:21 pm against the scheduled time of 11:30 am.
• The speaker presided over the entire proceedings.
• The deputy speaker did not attend the sitting.
• The leaders of the House (Chief Minister) and the opposition were absent.
• As many as 32 MPAs (nine percent) were present at the outset and 102 (27 percent) at the adjournment of the sitting.
• None of the parliamentary leader attended the proceedings.
• Four out of eight minority lawmakers attended the sitting.

 Output

• The House witnessed introduction of four private members’ bills which were referred to the relevant committees. These bills were the University of Lahore (Amendment) Bill, 2021; the Rashid Latif Khan University Bill, 2021; the Punjab Community Safety Measures in Sports and Health Club’s Premises Bill, 2021 and the University of Management and Technology, Lahore (Amendment) Bill, 2021.
• Tabled by a PML lawmaker, the House unanimously adopted a resolution recommending to add column related to the finality of the prophethood of Muhammad (PBUH) in marriage document (Nikah Nama).
• The House did consider seven private members’ resolutions appearing on the agenda as the sitting was adjourned early to condole death of a PML-N lawmaker Nishad Ahmed Khan Daha.

Representation and Responsiveness 

• The House neither held general discussion about measures to control dengue and price hike nor took up zero hour and calling attention notices.

Order and Institutionalization

• The House was adjourned to meet again on Wednesday, October 27, 2021 at 11:30 am.

Transparency

• ‘Orders of the Day’ was available on Assembly’s website.
• Information on Members’ attendance is available on 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