The 38th or second last sitting of the National Assembly in its fourth parliamentary year, dubbed ‘unnecessary’ by the opposition, lasted six days (from December 15-22), but the house remained in session for just 10 hours, a study revealed.
“The session lasted 10 hours and eight minutes, with each sitting starting with an average delay of 57 minutes, the house left 44 per cent of the agenda items unaddressed (of those which appeared on the Orders of the Day), primarily due to 110 points of order which consumed 43 per cent of the total session time: 288 of 668 minutes,” a report by the Free and Fair Election Network (FAFEN) said.
The house adopted a pro-democracy resolution in the wake of the government’s entangled relations with the army, but point of orders interrupted proceedings which left certain agenda items unaddressed, the report added.
In addition to the resolution, the lower house of the parliament passed the National Commission for Women Bill, 2011 and the Shifa Tameer-e-Millat University Bill, 2011.
Meanwhile, the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) tabled the 20th Amendment Bill for the creation of new provinces in Punjab and Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa, whereas the government moved the 20th Amendment Bill to legalise the by-elections which were held when the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) was incomplete. Twelve Private Members’ Bill(s) were also introduced and sent to respective standing committees.
PML-N raised 36 points of order, MQM 17, PML 4, MMAP 2, ANP 2, and PPPS 1, while independent members raised 7. The ruling PPP took the floor 37 times mostly to respond to the opposition’s criticism. None of the points of order attracted the formal ruling’s attention and remained futile. A party-wise analysis shows that 96 per cent of MQM parliamentarians took part in the proceedings, followed by MMAP’s 50 per cent, PMLN’s 48 per cent, PPPP’s 25 per cent and 25 per cent of the ANP, the report added.
The parliamentary leaders of ANP, NPP and PPPS attended four sittings each, BNPA and MQM three each, PML two, while MMAP and PMLF leaders attended one sitting each. Although the quorum was visibly lacking at various stages of the session, it was not pointed out by any of the legislators. The House took up five calling attention notices raised by nine male and nine female members. Four were sponsored by PMLN and one was tabled by PPPP members.
Published in The Express Tribune, January 25th, 2012.
COMMENTS
Comments are moderated and generally will be posted if they are on-topic and not abusive.
For more information, please see our Comments FAQ