- Social distancing in the National Assembly
The need to convene the National Assembly session is being felt by all political parties. National consensus is needed to deal effectively with the coronavirus issue; important Ordinances would lapse if the National Assembly fails to extend their life and the government cannot function if the budget is not passed by Parliament. The pandemic has however given birth to questions about convening the National Assembly session in the normal way. These include difficulties in maintaining the prescribed social distancing in the House and ensuring the attendance of the legislators from distant places at a time when airlines have been debarred from operating domestic flights.
The National Assembly speaker had set up a multiparty parliamentary committee to evaluate the proposal to hold a virtual session of the House. The committee has reportedly failed to reach a consensus and decided to invite all parliamentary leaders to discuss the mechanics of convening the session.
A prominent PPP Senator had earlier supported the idea of holding a virtual session. The PPP’s representative in the committee formed by the Speaker has however rejected the idea on the ground that the video link technology in the country is not up to the mark and has in the past caused listening problems.
The PML(N) has meanwhile rejected outright the idea of holding a virtual House session accusing the government of wanting to lock down Parliament while opening the entire country. Kh Asif termed the proposal a grand conspiracy to violate the constitutional rights of the people of Pakistan, their representatives and the democratic institutions. He maintained that there was no problem with holding the House session with the prescribed distance between the seated legislators as its Hall has a seating capacity of 450 people and if the ground floor galleries are also included, the capacity can increase to 800. With the average attendance being 200, safe distance protocols can easily be observed during the session.
The government has allowed international flights to bring back expatriates. It can similarly allow domestic flights to help lawmakers attend the House session and fly back to their hometowns. While the session can begin right away, trials should be held meanwhile for holding hassle-free virtual or hybrid sessions in case the going gets tough.
