ISLAMABAD, January 26, 2017: The exchange of barbs and fists between treasury and opposition lawmakers marred proceedings of the first sitting of 39th session of National Assembly on Thursday, says Free and Fair Election Network (FAFEN) in its Daily Factsheet.

PTI lawmakers chanted slogans against the ruling party that made the latter angry and resulted into exchange of physical brawl between them. After the incident, the Speaker suspended the proceedings for some time while the entire opposition left the House in protest and did not return.

The House transacted most of the agenda during remaining proceedings and witnessed passage of two bills.

Following are key observations of the proceedings:

Members’ Participation

• The National Assembly met for four hours and 33 minutes.
• The sitting started at 1614 hours against the scheduled time of 1600 hours.
• The House observed prayer break of 31 minutes.
• The Speaker presided over the entire sitting while the Deputy Speaker was also present.
• The Leader of the House (Prime Minister) did not attend the sitting.
• The Leader of the Opposition attended the proceedings for 68 minutes.
• Forty-nine lawmakers (14%) were present at outset while 68 (20%) at adjournment of the sitting.
• The parliamentary leaders of PPPP, MQM, JI, AMLP, QWP, APML, BNPA and PML-Z attended the sitting.
• Seven minority members were present.
• Twelve federal ministers attended the sitting.

Output

• Introduced by Minister for Law and Justice, the House passed the Central Law Officers (Amendment) Bill,2016 and the Pakistan Climate Change Bill, 2016.
• He also presented the National School of Public Policy (Amendment) Ordinance, 2017 and introduced the Constitution (Twenty-Fifth Amendment) Bill, 2017 and the Compulsory Teaching of the Holy Quran Bill, 2017.
• The House witnessed presentation of reports on the Explosive Substances (Amendment) Bill, 2016; the Limited Liability Partnership Bill, 2016; the National Commission on the Rights
• of the Child Bill, 2016 and the Illegal Dispossession (Amendment) Bill, 2016.
• The report on 2nd Biannual Monitoring on the implementation of National Finance Commission (NFC) Award for the period January to June, 2016 and the Civil Servants (Service in International Organizations) Rules, 2016 were presented.

Representation and Responsiveness

• The House took up sixteen out of 41 Starred Questions on the agenda. In addition, 15 supplementary questions were raised by the lawmakers.
• The House did not take up two Calling Attention Notices and a Motion of Thanks.

Order and Institutionalization

• The lawmakers spoke on eight Points of Order consuming two hours and four minutes of the proceedings.
• The lawmakers belonging to PML-N and PTI protested against each other by chanting slogans against each other on multiple occasions.
• MQM lawmakers walked out of the House for two minutes against the physical brawl between the treasury and PTI lawmakers.

Transparency

• ‘Orders of the Day’ was available to the legislators, observers and public.
• The attendance of lawmakers was available to the media and observers.

This daily factsheet is based on direct observation of the National Assembly proceedings conducted by Free and Fair Election Network (FAFEN). Errors and omissions are excepted.