Punjab PA Passes Three Bills amid Opposition’s Walkout

ISLAMABAD, December 18, 2019: The Provincial Assembly of Punjab passed three government bills amid low attendance of lawmakers and walkout by opposition parties, observes Free and Fair Election Network (FAFEN) in its Daily Factsheet on Wednesday.

Following are key observations of the House proceedings during first sitting of the 17^th session:

Members’ Participation

• The House met for an hour and 58 minutes, however, the sitting remained suspended for 30 minutes due to prayer break.
• The sitting started at 1605 hours against the scheduled time of 1500 hours.
• The Speaker presided over the entire sitting.
• The Deputy Speaker did not attend the sitting.
• The Leaders of the House and the Opposition did not attend the sitting.
• As many as 67(10%) MPAs were present at the outset and 97(19%) at the adjournment of the sitting.
• None of the parliamentary leaders attended the proceedings.
• As many as three out of eight minority lawmakers attended the sitting.

Output

• Moved by Minister for Law, the House passed three government bills including the Punjab Local Government (Amendment) Bill 2019, the Punjab Probation and Parole Service Bill, 2019 and the Punjab Village Panchayats and Neighborhood Councils (Amendment) Bill, 2019.

Representation and Responsiveness

• The House took up nine out of 17 starred questions while the lawmakers also asked as many supplementary questions.

Order and Institutionalization

• The lawmakers spoke on ten Points of Order consuming 16 minutes of the proceedings.
• The PML-N lawmakers staged walked out at 1747 hours against the attitude of the Chair who disallowed them to move amendments in the Punjab Local Government (Amendment) Bill 2019, and the Punjab Village Panchayats and Neighborhood Councils (Amendment) Bill, 2019.
• The quorum was pointed out twice during the proceedings by the PML-N lawmakers. On first instance at 1740 hours, the Chair ignored the lack of quorum while on second instance at 1747, it was found complete after counting.
• The House was adjourned to meet again on December 19, 2019 (Thursday) at 1500 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

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