ON Jan 26, the National Assembly witnessed an ugly brawl involving quite a few honourable members of the house from the PML-N and the PTI, along with at least one independent member. According to media reports and as stated by some MNAs, the lawmakers traded blows and obscene insults. Many honourable members rushed, jumping over desks, to defend their party colleagues who were at each other’s throats.

The brawl ended, as per reports, when the security staff intervened and separated the fighting legislators. The honourable speaker suspended the proceedings and later announced he would examine the video footage and take action against those found responsible. The following day, the speaker decided to keep the proceedings suspended but convened a meeting of parliamentary heads which ended without any decision.

Instead of attempting to resolve matters, and despite the gravity of the situation, the MNAs and parliamentary leaders proceeded as usual on their two-day weekend break although the Constitution considers the two-day break as workdays and these breaks are counted towards the mandatory minimum 130 days for which the Assembly has to be in session during the year.

The instances of indiscipline in parliament, such as the recent scuffle, are symptoms of a major problem.

The National Assembly resumed its proceedings on Monday after some behind-the-scenes understanding was reached between the parties. Apparently, no inquiry, which the speaker had promised on the day of the brawl, was held and no video footage was played in the parliamentary leaders’ meeting. Despite the loss of valuable time caused by the brawl and the loss of prestige to the house, responsibility was not fixed; in fact, the payment of daily allowance to the honourable members for the day the fight broke out and for the day after when there was no business was allowed. In other words, we can say that the taxpayers paid for the brawl.

According to the Assembly budget, the per day cost of the assembly to taxpayers turns out to be a staggering Rs25.7 million if counted over the 135 days which it met during the third parliamentary year. The daily cost of the Assembly comes to Rs9.5m if counted over the total 365 calendar days of the year. These figures may be outdated as legislators, while passing the finance bill (budget) 2016-17, authorised the government to fix their salaries and allowances, and the government, in turn, obliged by increasing the salaries and allowances by around 146 per cent with effect from October 2016. In any case, taxpayers paid a hefty bill for scuffles in the house.

This loss of taxpayers’ money is not confined to just one incident. During the 135 days in which the Assembly is deemed to have met (it actually met for just 99), the lack of quorum was pointed out 26 times. The quorum is merely 25pc which means that only 86 members have to be present out of a total of 342 to maintain it. But most of the time when the lack of quorum was found lacking, the proceedings had to be suspended. Many a time, Assembly proceedings were allowed to continue because of the understanding reached between the treasury and opposition benches, even though there was no quorum. In the parliamentary year that ended in June 2016, the average duration of one Assembly sitting came to a little less than two and a half hours. For roughly the same period, the Indian Lok Sabha met for an average six hours per day.

This state of affairs is not confined to the National Assembly. The provincial assemblies may face even worse situations. Recently, the Sindh Assembly witnessed some extremely embarrassing scenes when a provincial minister levelled a highly objectionable remark at a woman member who, later, armed with a bottle of petrol, threatened to resort to self-immolation before the minister apologised at the intervention of the party high command.

The Punjab Assembly frequently faces lack of quorum. During the third parliamentary year, lack of quorum was pointed out about 30 times for 75 sittings and most of the time the proceedings had to be suspended.

As indicated by the high number of instances of lack of quorum, poor attendance by members is a major issue. In fact, a recent incident revealed that the recorded and reported attendance figures may not be entirely reliable. A member of the Punjab Assembly pointed out the lack of quorum in the house on Jan 27. In order to maintain quorum, a minimum 93 out of 371 members were supposed to be present but the counting revealed that the number was much lower and the proceedings had to be suspended. This newspaper reported that the attendance record showed the presence of 139 members indicating, what an assembly member told Dawn, that more than 90 members had “come just to get their daily allowances and disappeared”.

The instances of gross indiscipline like the recent brawl, lack of substantive business in the house and committees, members’ dwindling attendance and interest in parliamentary proceedings, and an embarrassing token attendance for the sake of daily allowance are all symptoms of a major problem. The crux of the matter is that the quality of parliamentary democracy has hit a plateau or may even be deteriorating.

The core issue is that one individual or at best a few individuals at the top have come to control all the levers of decision-making rendering the collective fora of consultation and decision-making such as the legislatures, cabinets, party councils and executive committees almost redundant. Unless the voters stop pledging allegiance to individuals instead of institutions and unless the top leaders find a way to correct the situation, taxpayers may start questioning the need and desirability of paying for such misbehaving entities.

The writer is president of Pildat — a public policy think tank of Pakistan.

Published in Dawn February 7th, 2017