The Punjab Assembly remained more productive during its third year of current term as compared to preceding years in terms of passing legislative pieces, but the issues of order and participation stubbornly persisted.
The number of sittings of the assembly increased from 62 in the second year to 75 in the third but punctuality issues persisted, as every sitting continued to start on an average 77 minutes behind the schedule.
On the output of the assembly, the number of bills passed during the third year surpassed the number of bills cumulatively passed during the first two years. All the bills passed were moved by treasury and were apparently supplied to an executive on its demand as members’ zero individual interest in legislation continued to exist. Only one private member bill was introduced during the entire year in a house of 368.
On the order and institutionalisation, misuse of points of the order continued to be witnessed. Despite the provision of ‘Zero Hour’ (last hour of sitting) in the rules of procedure, the lawmakers kept on using points of order to raise the unrelated issues.
If the number of committee reports can be a measure of standing committees’ performance, it registered some improvement as 48 reports were presented before the House. Another positive development was a number of amendments to the rules of procedure which made provisions for annual calendar of the assembly, Zero Hour and time-bound election of the standing committees.
The average attendance remained as low as 46% during the year with the maximum of 68% members present in one sitting, while 252 lawmakers took part in the proceedings by submitting agenda items, speaking on floor of the House or by doing both. The absence of the leader of the House persisted during the third year as well.
The assembly held discussions on incidents of terrorism that claimed several lives, including that of the provincial home minister, trials of Jamat-e-Islami (JI) leadership in Bangladesh, problems of the agriculture sector, Orange Line Metro project and measures of good governance in the province, reports the Free and Fair Election Network (FAFEN).
