ISLAMABAD, April 26, 2019: The Provincial Assembly of Punjab suspended the membership of a PML-N lawmaker due to misconduct with the Chair during the proceedings on Friday, observes Free and Fair Election Network (FAFEN) in its Daily Factsheet.

Following are key observations of the House proceedings during fifth sitting of the ninth session:

Members’ Participation

• The House met for an hour and 25 minutes; however, the proceedings remained suspended for 34 minutes due to lack of quorum.
• The sitting started at 1102 hours against the scheduled time of 0900 hours.
• The Deputy Speaker presided over the entire sitting in the absence of the Speaker.
• The Leaders of the House and the Opposition did not attend the sitting.
• As many as 33 MPAs (9%) were present at the outset and 105 (28%) at the adjournment of the sitting.
• The parliamentary leader of PPPP attended the proceedings.
• As many as four out of eight minority lawmakers attended the sitting.

Output

• The Minister for Law presented a report of the Standing Committee on Local Government and Community Development on the Punjab Local Government Bill, 2019.
• The House did not take up six special audit reports concerning various departments of the provincial government for the year 2015-16.

 Representation and Responsiveness

• The Minister for Agriculture responded to only one out of six Starred Questions addressed to his ministry while the remaining questions were not taken up. The lawmakers asked two supplementary questions as well.

Order and Institutionalization

• As many as 19 lawmakers raised Points of Order consuming 23 minutes of the proceedings.
• The lawmakers belonging to PML-N protested for two minutes against the Chair’s refusal to allow a supplementary question during the Question Hour.
• The Chair suspended the membership of a PML-N lawmaker for misbehaving with him during his party’s protest. The Chair did not mention any specific period of suspension during the proceedings.
• The opposition parties PPPP and PML-N staged a walkout from the proceedings at 1142 hours against the suspension of a PML-N lawmaker and did not return to the House till its adjournment.
• A PML-N lawmaker pointed out the lack of quorum at 1149 hours which led to suspension of proceedings for 34 minutes.
• The House was adjourned to meet again on April 29, 2019 (Monday) at 0500 hours

Transparency

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

  ---

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