ISLAMABAD, October 4, 2019: The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) Assembly passed three government bills amid protest by the opposition during proceedings of the House, observes Free and Fair Election Network (FAFEN) in the Daily Factsheet.

Following are some key observations of the House proceedings during 11^th sitting of eighth session:

Members’ Participation

• The Assembly met for 41 minutes.
• The sitting started at 1102 hours against the scheduled time of 1000 hours.
• The Deputy Speaker presided over the entire sitting in the absence of Speaker.
• The Leader of the House did not attend the sitting.
• The Leader of the Opposition attended the entire sitting.
• Forty legislators (28%) were present at the outset and 60 (41%) at the end of the sitting.
• Only the parliamentary leader of PPPP attended the proceedings.
• One out of four minority lawmakers were present.

Output                                             

• Moved by Provincial Minister for Law, the House passed three government bills including the  KP Code of Civil Procedure (Amendment) Bill, 2019; the Code of Criminal Procedure (KP) (Amendment) Bill, 2019 and the Succession (KP) (Amendment) Bill, 2019.

Representation and Responsiveness

• All 17 questions and two Call Attention Notices, sponsored by the opposition lawmakers, lapsed due to opposition’s protest in the House at the time of their consideration.

Order and Institutionalization

• As many as three lawmakers spoke on Points of Order consuming five minutes of the proceedings.
• The entire opposition protested during the proceedings for 16 minutes when the Chair did not allow an MMAP lawmaker to speak on a point of order.
• The House was adjourned to meet again on October 7, 2019 (Monday) at 1400 hours.

 Transparency

• ‘Orders of the Day’ was available to the legislators, observers and others.
• The attendance of lawmakers was not available to the observers and media.

This daily factsheet is based on direct observation of the KP Assembly proceeding conducted by United Rural Development Organization (URDO) – a member organization of FAFEN. Errors and omissions are excepted