The 10th Balochistan Assembly witnessed a prolific first parliamentary year with the passage of 21 treasury-backed bills, including landmark legislation on domestic violence, education and rehabilitation of victims of terrorism. The House adopted 59 resolutions mostly seeking improved governance and economic development in the province. Impressively, 97 percent of the legislators participated in the House proceedings.
The House managed to pass twice the number of bills compared to the previous year. However, following last year’s precedence, none of the private members’ bills were passed. Half of the bills passed this year were amendments to existing laws, while the remaining were new pieces of legislation.
Balochistan earned the distinction of being the first province to hold local government elections, in December 2013. To this end, the first amendment to the Local Government Act 2010 was passed in August 2013 to allow timely, party-based elections. The second local government amendment bill came after the elections were held, aiming to cater to a wider representation of the public by clubbing together the categories of peasants and workers and introducing a new category for professionals and/or social workers.
There was an improvement in how lawmakers represented their constituents’ interests, as indicated by the fact that 83 resolutions appeared on the List of Business, as opposed to 11 during the previous year. The House adopted 59 resolutions, most (21) of which sought improved governance.
Lawmakers submitted 21 adjournment motions on the List of Business, of which nine were taken up for debate. To conduct executive oversight the members put forward 196 questions on the House agenda.
The year witnessed 10 sessions, completing the constitutional requirement to meet for 100 days during a parliamentary year. On average, 35 members were present at the outset of a sitting in the 65-member assembly, while 26 were seen at the time of adjournment. Two MPAs on non-Muslim seats attended each sitting on average. Although more than half of the total members were present in a sitting on average, the quorum was not met on several occasions.
The Chief Minister and the Leader of the House attended 33 and 32 sittings respectively, both spending a little more than half of the total time on the floor during the year. The Chairman presided over 54 percent of the proceedings; the Deputy Speaker chaired 25 percent while the Panel of the Chairpersons presided over 13 percent of the proceedings. The remaining eight percent of the time was consumed in breaks.

The parliamentary leader of PkMAP attended 33 sittings, followed by leaders of PML (20) and PML-N (13) while the BNP leader attended only one sitting during the entire year. The members belonging to single member parties – ANP, BNP-A and MWM – attended 26, 21 and three sittings respectively.
Three questions of privilege were raised by the members and referred to the Standing Committees on Rules of Procedures and Privileges.
Lawmakers raised 318 POs that consumed 11 percent of each session on average. However, none of the points of order attracted the chair’s formal ruling. Unless the chair gives a formal ruling on a point of order, it does not lead to any assembly output.

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