ISLAMABAD, March 7, 2018: The Sindh Assembly deferred the consideration of an amendment to the Sindh Universities and Institutes Laws on Wednesday amidst opposition’s protest and boycott against the bill, observes Free and Fair Election Network (FAFEN) in its Daily Factsheet.

Following are key observations of the House proceedings during ninth sitting of the 38^th session:

Members’ Participation

• The Sindh Assembly met for two hours and 55 minutes.
• The sitting started at 1150 hours against the scheduled time of 1000 hours.
• The Deputy Speaker presided over the entire sitting while the Speaker was absent.
• The Leader of the House did not attend the sitting.
• The Leader of the Opposition attended the sitting for two hours.
• As many as 29 (17%) lawmakers were present at the outset and 28 (16%) at the adjournment of sitting.
• The parliamentary leaders of PPPP, MQM, PML-F and PTI attended the sitting.
• As many as six minority lawmakers attended the sitting.

Output

• The House deferred the Sindh Universities and Institutes Laws (Amendment) Bill, 2018.

Representation and Responsiveness

• The House did not take up an Adjournment Motion (AM) regarding alcohol consumption in Sindh Secretariat Building.
• The House addressed one out of six Calling Attention Notices (CAN) highlighting the issue of doctors’ unavailability in emergency ward during night shift at Civil Hospital Thatta.
• The remaining CANs were not addressed due to absence of the relevant ministers.
• The House took up four out of five Starred Questions for answers during the proceedings. In addition, lawmakers asked 27 supplementary questions.

 Order and Institutionalization

• A lawmaker belonging to PML-F staged a protest in the House against the consideration of the Sindh Universities and Institutes Laws (Amendment) Bill, 2018. The protest continued for four minutes. Following the protest, entire opposition except a MQM lawmaker announced to boycott the consideration of the Sindh Universities and Institutes Laws (Amendment) Bill, 2018.
• A MQM lawmaker staged a walkout following a verbal clash with a colleague of his own party.
• A lawmaker raised a Point of order consuming 20 minutes of the proceedings.

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 Sindh Assembly proceedings conducted by Pakistan Press Foundation, a member organization of FAFEN. Errors and omissions are excepted