October 28; In a welcome development, responding to a plea by PILDAT, the Federal Ombudsman has asked the National Assembly of Pakistan to provide the attendance records of MNAs to PILDAT.

PILDAT has been struggling for greater transparency in Parliament and Provincial Assemblies. PILDAT has believed that making the attendance records of the honourable members of the Parliament and the Provincial Legislatures public is one of the basic requirements of a democratic and transparent Parliament. Unfortunately National Assembly Secretariat under various Speakers had been rejecting PILDAT demand for the past many years even though it was shared with the successive assemblies that daily attendance records of Indian Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha are regularly displayed on their respective websites and so is the practice in most other Parliaments.

PILDAT finally asked for the National Assembly members� attendance record invoking the Freedom of Information Ordinance, 2002. After the request was declined by the National Assembly Secretariat, PILDAT appealed to the Wafaqi Mohtasib (Federal Ombudsman) which, after holding proceedings for the past many months, has finally upheld PILDAT�s point of view and �recommended� (that�s all the ombudsman can do) to the National Assembly in its �Findings and Recommendations� of 30th September 2013 to provide the requested attendance records.

The Ombudsman has not agreed with the argument of the National Assembly secretariat that the attendance record is a �private� or �personal� information. The Ombudsman in its decision has stated that:

�the denial of the requested information, i.e., the record of attendance of the Honourable Members of the Parliament who are elected representatives of the people, is not in sync with democratic spirit which must prevail in a democratic dispensation. In fact, the record of attendance of the Honourable Members enables those who have elected them to evaluate their performance as public representatives. Clearly, it is the right of the people in a democratic dispensation to know if their representatives are present in the Parliament to represent their cause.�

The National Assembly may choose to file an appeal against this verdict with the President of Pakistan where such appeals are known to sit for years. But one should hope that better sense will prevail and the National Assembly Secretariat, under the new Honourable Speaker, will turn a new leaf and make the MNAs� attendance record public.

PILDAT hopes for a more rational decision making on the part of the National Assembly Secretariat on this issue.