ISLAMABAD, April 26, 2012: Starting an hour and 20 minutes late, the National Assembly met for two hours and 35 minutes during its second sitting of the 41st session on Thursday, continued to witness low attendance by the Members.
With 58 Legislators present at the start and 105 when the sitting was adjourned. A maximum of 206 Members were observed at any time of the sitting.
The House did not take up any formal agenda, while six Points of Order – four by PPPP, one PMLN and one Independent – consumed 65% of the sitting time.
The proceedings of the House were disrupted when the PMLN and PPPP Members started sloganeering on the issue of Supreme Court’s sentence against the Prime Minister.
The Prime Minister did not attend the sitting while the Leader of the Opposition was there for 91 minutes.
Following are some key observations of the parliamentary business:
Members’ participation in House proceedings
- The National Assembly met for two hours and 35 minutes.
- The sitting started at 1820 hours instead of the scheduled starting time of 1700 hours. The proceedings started an hour and 20 minutes late.
- The Speaker chaired the sitting. The Deputy Speaker was also present
- The Prime Minister did not attend the sitting while the Leader of the Opposition was present for 91 minutes.
- The parliamentary leaders of the NPP, PPPS and BNPA were present, while those of ANP, MQM, MMAP, PMLF and PML remained absent.
- The Chief Whips of PPPP, PML, MMAP, ANP and MQM were present.
- 58 Legislators (17%) were present at the outset of the sitting while there were 105 MNAs (31%) at the end of the sitting. A maximum of 206 Members were present at one point of the sitting.
- Seven minority Members were present.
Representation and Responsiveness
- The House did not take up any of the formal agenda listed on the Orders of the Day.
Output
- The Chartered Accountants (Amendment) Bill, 2012 was not taken up by the House.
Order and institutionalization
- Six Points of Order consumed 100 minutes of the sitting time. None of them attracted the Chair’s formal ruling.
- The proceedings of the House were disrupted when the PMLN and PPPP Members started sloganeering on the issue of Supreme Court’s sentence against the Prime Minister.
Transparency
- Orders of the Day were available to Legislators, observers and others.
- Information on Members’ attendance was unavailable to observers and the public.
- The Quorum was visibly lacking at various stages during the sitting. However, lack of quorum was not pointed out by any Member.
The Daily Factsheet is based on direct observation of National Assembly proceedings conducted by Centre for Peace and Development Initiatives (CPDI), a Member organization of FAFEN.
