ISLAMABAD, January 24, 2017: The Punjab Assembly adopted four Private Members’ resolutions and deferred their bills due to the absence of Minister for Law on Tuesday, observes Free and Fair Election Network (FAFEN).

Following are key observations of the House proceedings during second sitting of 26^th session:

Members’ Participation

• The Punjab Assembly met for two hours.
• The sitting started at 1127 hours against the scheduled time of 1000 hours.
• The Speaker presided over the entire sitting while the Deputy Speaker was not present.
• The Chief Minister did not attend the sitting.
• The Leader of the Opposition attended the sitting for 23 minutes.
• Sixteen MPAs (4%) were present at outset and 40 (11%) at adjournment of the sitting.
• The parliamentary leaders of PTI, PPPP and JI attended the sitting.
• Four minority members were present.

Output

• The House deferred the introduction of two Private Members’ bills due to the absence of Minister for Law.
• The House passed four Private Members’ resolutions urging the government to ban Hindi-dubbed cartoons, promote Quranic education, change the name of Lahore’s eye hospital and take action against sellers of adulterated milk.
• The Standing Committee on Education presented its report on Bill No. 38/2016.

Representation and Responsiveness

• As many as ten out of 18 Starred Questions were responded to by the government during Question Hour while one question was disposed of due to the absence of mover. The lawmakers also asked 26 supplementary questions.
• The House deferred three Adjournment Motions of PTI, PML-N and PML lawmakers for one week.

Order and Institutionalization

• The lawmakers spoke on nine Points of Order consuming seven minutes of the proceedings.
• The sole JI lawmaker staged a token walkout for one minute against non-provision of funds by Department of Zakat to the hospitals in South Punjab.
• Entire opposition staged protest on the floor of the House for one minute against the absence of Secretary, Department of Food in the gallery.

Transparency

• ‘Orders of the Day’ was available to the legislators, observers and public.
• Information on Members’ attendance is available on Punjab 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.