Pheu Thai Party said that the Constitutional Court should not have authorities to rule on political deadlocks because it is ‘undemocratic’.
According to Matichon Online, Phumtham Vejchayachai, acting Secretary General of Pheu Thai Party, on Sunday 17 January 2016, criticised the content of the new charter draft about the authorities of the Constitutional Court.
In the current draft with 261 Articles, the Constitutional Drafting Committee (CDC) announced last week that the new charter will move the language of Article 7 of the 2007 Constitution to the section on the jurisdiction of the Constitutional Court instead.
In other words, the Constitutional Court will be given the authority to rule on cases that now fall under Article 7, which stipulates that when a situation arises where no provision of the constitution is applicable, the matter shall be decided in accordance with constitutional practices in a democratic form of government with the King as the head of state.
The Article is viewed as an emergency measure to break political impasses.
According to Phumtham, the Constitutional Court should not have final say over political exits for the country in time of political conundrums because the institution is not related to the people as members of the Constitutional Court are not elected.
In a truly democratic system of governance, solutions for political crisis should be left to the majority of people to decide, said Pheu Thai Party acting Secretary General.
Established under the 1997 Constitution with 15 members originally with jurisdiction on constitutionality of parliamentary acts, the court was replaced by the Constitutional Tribunal after the 2006 Coup d’état and was reintroduced again by the 2007 Constitution.
Under the 2007 Charter, of the nine Constitutional Court judges, five are appointed by the Supreme Court and the Administrative Court. The remaining four are appointed by a committee which formed of (1) the President of the Supreme Court, (2) the President of the Administrative Court, (3) the Speaker of Parliament, (4) the Leader of the Opposition in the House and (5) the President of one of the independent agencies.
Since its inception, the court had made several significant and controversial decisions, such as the acquittal Thaksin Shinawatra for filing an incomplete statement regarding his wealth with the National Anti-Corruption Commission (NACC) in 2001, the 2007 dissolution of the Thai Rak Thai political party, the predecessor party of Pheu Thai, and the 2014 removal of Yingluck Shinawatra, the former Prime Minister, from office.
When asked by Matichon if he agrees with the proposal to put mechanisms to prevent the new charter to be amended, Phumtham said that he disagrees, saying that the constitution should be allowed space for changes to be incoherent with changing political and social circumstances.
He concluded that people’s participation should be regarded as the key for changes in the constitutional draft.
Prior to the 2014 coup d’état, the anti-election protesters of the People’s Democratic Reform Committee (PDRC) led by Suthep Thaugsuban, called for the invocation of Article 7 to seek the King’s endorsement of a nominated interim Prime Minister if the Constitutional Court ruled against the former PM Yingluck Shinawatra.
Worachet Pakeerut, law lecturer from Thammasat University and member of the Nitirat Group, a group of progressive law academics, said that Article 7 is used to refer to constitutional convention to fix loopholes in the written Constitution, as long as it is adopted democratically. It by no means allows a royally-appointed Prime Minister, he said.
Last week the CDC finished drafting 261 Articles of the current charter draft, the CDC is now working on the provisional and final chapter of the charter draft which is expected to be completed this week.