1 week Ago By JAVAID UR RAHMAN
ISLAMABAD - The National Assembly, touted as the heart of democratic deliberation and a platform for accountability, has for the past year resembled less a house of legislation and more a verbal battlefield. The main opposition has not been missing a day to disrupt the proceedings of the lower house with different tactics. The MPs from treasury benches facing embarrassment every other day as the opposition deliberately suspend the proceedings by pointing out lack of quorum.
Though the quorum rule was established to ensure a minimum presence of MPs in the House [One-fourth of the total membership of the National Assembly] to ensure decorum, the opposition has started using it as a weapon to disrupt proceedings. One of the opposition members from PTI, on a daily basis, points out lack of required strength in the house with the outset of the proceedings. This strategy employed by the opposition most of the time led to suspend/adjourn the house without disposing of the important agenda items.
Commissioner reviews Vaisakhi festival preparations Though this political move had also been used by the previous opposition in the previous eras, yet this opposition is perhaps breaking all the previous records. Political pundits viewed that this situation has become a challenge for the chair to run the proceedings in a smooth manner. Speaker National Assembly Ayaz Sadiq has been struggling to run the house in such a state – where he has to avoid disruption of the proceedings and physical and verbal altercation between the opposition and treasury members, maintain respect for the members and divide time fairly between them on any matter.
As the charged opposition members not spare any chance to derail the debate and block the legislation. Last week, the chair before suspending the House expressed his displeasure over the conduct of the opposition members. The opposition, Sadiq commented in the House, instead of engaging in the proceedings preferring to walkout or derailing the debates.
“The opposition members now raising concerns about the lack of debate on critical issues such as Palestine, border areas, and canals are the same individuals who have deliberately and consistently refused from participating in the House proceedings,” Speaker National Assembly commented, in the Friday’s proceedings before adjourning the House. Every child deserves safety, education: CPWB chairperson The one-day house proceedings normally cost nearly two millions to national exchequers. The pendency of agenda items including call-attention notices, Questions [Prepared for Question-Hour], adjournment motions etc are piling up each passing day.
Political and constitutional experts viewed that this act of the main opposition party not only causing a bad impact on parliamentary democracy but also setting wrong trends for the future. These opposition MPs, they commented, in their government’s era used to criticize the opposition for any single attempt by the opposition in this regard. Tags: house chaos quorum.
