National Assembly of Pakistan

The National Assembly of Pakistan, also referred to as Aiwān-ē-Zairīñ, is the lower house of the bicameral Parliament of Pakistan, with the upper house being the Senate. As of 2023, the National Assembly has a maximum membership of 336, of which 266 are directly elected by an adult universal suffrage and a first-past-the-post system to represent their respective constituencies, while 60 are elected on reserved seats for women and religious minorities from all over the country. Members hold their seats for five years or until the house is dissolved by the President on the advice of the Prime Minister. The house convenes at the Parliament House, Red Zone, Islamabad.
Members are elected through the first-past-the-post system under universal adult suffrage, representing electoral districts known as National Assembly constituencies. According to the constitution, the 70 seats reserved for women and religious minorities are allocated to the political parties according to their proportional representation.
Each National Assembly is formed for a five-year term, commencing from the date of the first sitting, after which it is automatically dissolved. The National Assembly can only be dissolved by the President of Pakistan on the Prime Minister of Pakistan advice, it cannot be dissolved by the Prime Minister alone.
On 3 April 2022, President of Pakistan Arif Alvi dissolved the Assembly Under Section 58-I and 48-I on the advice of Prime Minister Imran Khan. On 7 April, the Supreme Court of Pakistan set aside the dissolution order, restoring the National Assembly. After these events, on 11 April, after National Assembly proceedings, a vote was held on deciding the next prime minister of Pakistan, overseen by Ayaz Sadiq. There were only two candidates contesting, from the PTI, was Shah Mehmood Qureshi, and from the PMLN, Shehbaz Sharif. Before the vote, 123 members of the PTI resigned from the National Assembly. The vote would be conducted under the supervision of Ayaz Sadiq, resulting in the election of Shehbaz Sharif as the Prime Minister of Pakistan. Following this, large political crises occurred across Pakistan in late 2022 and for the duration of 2023 between the ousted Imran Khan and Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif until a new assembly was elected in early 2024.
The current National Assembly is the 16th National Assembly of Pakistan, which was formed in February 2024 after the 2024 Pakistani general election. The election was contested for rigging. The 16th assembly has seen various shuffles, including a large bloc of Independent politicians backed by PTI use the Sunni Ittehad Council as a parliamentary vehicle, and several reserved seats being suspended by the Supreme Court of Pakistan due to the Reserved seats case.

History

The first session of the first Constituent Assembly of Pakistan was held on 10 August 1947 at Sindh Assembly Building, in Karachi. On 11 August 1947, Quaid-i-Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah was elected unanimously as the President of the Constituent Assembly of Pakistan and the National Flag was formally approved by the Assembly.

On 12 August 1947, a resolution was approved regarding officially addressing Mr. Muhammad Ali Jinnah as "Quaid-i-Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah". On the same day, a special committee called the "Committee on Fundamental Rights of Citizens and Minorities of Pakistan" was appointed to look into and advise the Assembly on matters relating to the fundamental rights of the citizens, particularly the minorities, to legislate on these issues appropriately.
On 14 August 1947, Lord Mountbatten, Governor General of India, addressed the Constituent Assembly of Pakistan. The transfer of power took place on 15 August. The Quaid gave a reply to the address in the House, on which the principles of the State of Pakistan were laid.
On 15 August 1947, Quaid-i-Azam was sworn in as the first Governor General of Pakistan. Sir Mian Abdul Rashid, Chief Justice of Pakistan, administered an oath of office from him. The Quaid remained in this position until his death on 11 September 1948.
Powers

The Constitution, which was passed unanimously by the National Assembly in April 1973, provides a federal parliamentary system of government, with the president as the ceremonial head of the state and an elected prime minister as the head of the government. Under Article 50 of the Constitution, the federal legislature is the bicameral Majlis-e-Shoora, which comprises the President and the two Houses, the National Assembly and the Senate. The National Assembly, Pakistan's sovereign legislative body, makes laws for the federation under powers spelled out in the federal legislative List and also for subjects in the concurrent List, as given in the fourth schedule of the Constitution. Through debates, adjournment motions, question hours, and standing committees, the National Assembly keeps a check on the government. It ensures that the government functions within the parameters set out in the Constitution, and does not violate the people's fundamental rights. The Parliament scrutinises public spending and exercises control of expenditure incurred by the government through the work of the relevant standing committees. The Public Accounts Committee has a special role in reviewing the report of the auditor general. The Senate, the upper house of the Parliament, has equal representation from the federating units balancing the provincial inequality in the National Assembly, where the number of members is based on population of the provinces. The Senate's role is to promote national cohesion and harmony and work as a stabilising factor of the federation. The Senate has 104 members who serve six-year terms which are alternated so that half the senators are up for re-election by the electoral college every three years. The National Assembly consists of 342 members. The Constitution does not empower the President to dissolve the National Assembly. The Senate is not subject to dissolution. Only the Parliament can amend the Constitution, by a two-thirds majority vote separately in each House.

List of Assemblies

Members of National Assembly

Qualifications

The Constitution of Pakistan lists several requirements for members of the National Assembly in Article 62.
The constitution also details several disqualifications in Article 63, which include mental instability, insolvency, criminal conviction and accepting dual-citizenship or relinquishing Pakistani nationality, among others. Furthermore, candidates found to have opposed Pakistan's ideology or worked against the integrity of the country, after its establishment in 1947, are disqualified.

National Assembly Composition

The National Assembly has 336 members, including 60 seats reserved for women and 10 for Non-Muslims, as per Article 51. The seats in the National Assembly are allocated to each province and the federal capital based on population, as officially published in the preceding census. The present allocation of seats is as under:

Tenure

The National Assembly is elected for a five-year term based on adult franchise and one person, one vote. The tenure of a Member of the National Assembly is for the duration of the House, or sooner, in case the Member dies or resigns. The tenure of the National Assembly also comes to an end if dissolved on the advice of the Prime Minister or by the President in his discretion under the Constitution. Under the 1973 Constitution, a member of Parliament may not hold the office of the prime minister more than twice. In the 1990s, Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif proposed a bill to amend the 1973 constitution to allow a Member to serve a third term as prime minister.

Speaker and deputy speaker

According to The Constitution

After a general election, the National Assembly shall, at its first meeting and to the exclusion of any other business, elect from amongst its members a Speaker and a Deputy Speaker and, so often as the office of Speaker or Deputy Speaker becomes vacant, the Assembly shall elect another member as Speaker or, as the case may be, Deputy Speaker.
Before entering upon office, a member elected as Speaker or Deputy Speaker shall make before the National Assembly oath in the form set out in the Third Schedule.
When the office of Speaker is vacant, or the Speaker is absent or is unable to perform his functions due to any cause, the Deputy Speaker shall act as Speaker, and if, at that time, the Deputy Speaker is also absent or is unable to act as Speaker due to any cause, such member as may be determined by the rules of procedure of the Assembly shall preside at the meeting of the Assembly.
The Speaker or the Deputy Speaker shall not preside at a meeting of the Assembly when a resolution for his removal from office is being considered.
The Speaker may, by writing under his hand addressed to the President, resign his office.
The Deputy Speaker may, by writing under his hand addressed to the Speaker, resign his office.
The office of Speaker or Deputy Speaker shall become vacant if:

he resigns his office;
he ceases to be a member of the Assembly;
he is removed from office by a resolution of the Assembly, of which not less than seven days' notice has been given and which is passed by the votes of the majority of the total membership of the Assembly.

When the National Assembly is dissolved the Speaker shall continue in his office till the person elected to fill the office by the next Assembly enters upon his office.

The Speaker of the House is the presiding officer of the National Assembly. The speaker is assisted by the Deputy Speaker. Both officers are elected from within the ranks of the National Assembly and, by current convention, are usually members of the majority party. The election of the two officers is the first matter an incoming National Assembly deals with, as mandated by the constitution. Apart from presiding over National Assembly debates, the Speaker may also assume the duties of Acting President, if the position is vacant.
The current Speaker and Deputy Speaker are Ayaz Sadiq and Syed Ghulam Mustafa Shah respectively.