September 05, 2007	Wednesday	Sha'aban 22, 1428

ISLAMABAD, Sept 4: A report on the performance of the National Assembly reveals that the lower house passed just 42 laws during the past four years with an average of around 10 per year compared to 73 presidential ordinances issued during the same period.

The report, released by the Pakistan Institute of Legislative Development and Transparency (Pildat) on Tuesday, considers the dominating role of legislation by presidential decrees detrimental to the sovereignty of the parliament and democracy in general.

It points out that Indian Lok Sabha passed 216 laws during four years and the Indian president issued only 28 ordinances indicating a more stable parliamentary system and a more active and assertive parliament.

The report also indicates that the assembly met for an average of 82 actual working days per year calculated by disregarding the two-days’ break which is counted as working days by the assembly to fulfil the constitutional requirement of meeting for minimum 130 days per year.

The assembly met for just three hours per day on the average. It says the government could answer only 22 per cent of the 40,000 questions submitted by the members during the four years. Rest of the questions were either ruled out of order or lapsed.

It says that 43 standing committees worked harder by holding about 200 meetings per year excluding the first year when these were not even constituted.

The report criticises the lack of effectiveness of the budget process of the assembly as its debate remained superfluous and short. The standing committees remained indifferent to budget process like the past assemblies. The defence budget was also kept under the wraps in keeping with the past traditions of the executive.

The members failed to effectively scrutinise the budget or even prevent disguised legislation as a part of the money bill a rather unethical tradition started by the government since 2005- 06 budget.

It also expresses disappointment at the apparent lack of interest by members in general and ministers and the prime minister in particular.

The report notes that the prime minister seldom attended assembly sessions and when he did, most of his time was consumed by listening to ruling party members’ complaints and signing their applications instead of paying attention to the proceedings of the assembly.

The report, however, praises the assembly secretariat for relatively greater transparency as it published its performance report for the first time in the history of the National Assembly.

In its report, Pildat demands that the members’ attendance record and emoluments received by them should also be made public.