ISLAMABAD, January 14, 2020: The exchange of hot words between the treasury and the opposition benches ultimately led to the early adjournment of National Assembly sitting without addressing most of the private members’ business, observes Free and Fair Election Network (FAFEN) in Daily Factsheet on Tuesday.

Following are key observations of the House proceedings during tenth sitting of the 18th session:

Members’ Participation

• The National Assembly met for two hours and 48 minutes; however, the proceedings remained suspended for 31 minutes due to prayer break and for another 30 minutes due to uproar in the House.
• The sitting started at 1640 hours against the scheduled time of 1600 hours.
• The Speaker chaired the sitting for an hour and three minutes while remaining sitting was chaired by a member of Panel of Chairpersons.
• The Deputy Speaker was not present.
• The Leaders of the House (Prime Minister) and the Opposition did not attend the sitting.
• As many as 78 (23%) members were present at the outset and 132 (39%) at the adjournment of the sitting.
• The parliamentary leaders of BAP, JWP, PML, ANP and MMAP attended the sitting.
• Six out of 10 minority lawmakers were present.

Output

• Five private members’ bills were introduced in the House which included the Constitution (Amendment) Bill, 2020 (Article 223); the Constitution (Amendment) Bill, 2020 (Article 51); the Transfer of Evacuee Land (Katchi Abadi) (Amendment) Bill, 2020; the Marine Insurance (Amendment) Bill, 2020 and the National University of Technology (Amendment) Bill, 2020. All these bills were referred to the relevant committees for further consideration.
• The House rejected the Foreign Exchange (Prevention of Payments) (Amendment) Bill, 2020 and the National Skills University Islamabad (Amendment) Bill, 2020 after voice voting.
• The Chair deferred the Trade Organizations (Amendment) Bill, 2020 and asked its mover to consult with the government before its introduction in the House.
• A bill – the Institute for Bioresources Research Bill, 2020 – was not taken up due to absence of its mover while the Constitution (Amendment) Bill, 2020 (Articles 1, 51, 59, 106, 175A, 198 and 218) was deferred on the movers’ request.
•  A total of 50 other joint bills appearing on the agenda in the name of three PTI lawmakers were deferred on one of the mover’s request as the Chair did not allow to club them together for introduction in the House.
• Nine other private members’ bills, four reports of the Standing Committees, amendments in Rules 61 & 91 of the Rules of Procedure and Conduct of Business in National Assembly 2007, a Calling Attention Notice (CAN) and  five resolutions and as many motions under Rule 259 were not considered due to early adjournment of the sitting.

Representation and Responsiveness

• Minister of State for Parliamentary Affairs responded to a CAN  regarding closure of Land Custom Station, NLC dry port Hyderabad.

Order and Institutionalization

• As many as 11 lawmakers including Minister of State for Parliamentary Affairs spoke on points of order for 17 minutes.

• Minister for Narcotics Control and a PML-N lawmaker spoke on points of personal explanation consuming 23 minutes of the proceedings. Following their speeches, the House witnessed confrontation and exchange of hot words between the treasury and opposition benches, and the Chair had to adjourn the House to meet again on January 15, 2020 (Wednesday) at 1100 hours.

Transparency

• Orders of the Day was available to the legislators, observers and public.
• Attendance of the lawmakers is available on the National Assembly’s website.

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