Senate plays it safe on NBTC nominees in light of legal challenges

The process of selecting the commissioners produced two lists of 22 people each. The first list consisted of candidates nominated by relevant organisations, while the second list was proposed by a state selection panel. It is this second list that has provoked legal challenges as the process of selecting candidates has been questioned - particularly by people rejected from it.

A political source said that at first the Senate was expected to select most of the commissioners from the second list, but concern about the legal challenges caused it to reverse that stance and favour the first list. As it is now, even if all five of those commissioners taken from the second list are hit by legal challenges, the NBTC could still convene and the remaining six members could deal with key issues.

The 2010 Frequency Allocation Law states that the NBTC board can meet if there are at least six commissioners present.

The source pointed out that as the NBTC is required to have two commissioners with economic background, the Senate picked those two from the first list. This is because one failed candidate, Suranan Wongvithyakamjorn, who contended with an economic background for the second list, filed a legal complaint at the Central Administrative Court against the selection process.

If that case ends with a verdict that the selection process was unlawful, the Senate will not have to select a new NBTC commissioner with economic background, as that requirement has been covered by members from the first list.

But the source said the legal challenges could affect the whole selection process, depending on how the Central Administrative Court or the Constitution Court ruled.

On Monday, the Supreme Administrative Court accepted Suranan's appeal against the Central Administrative Court's ruling last month that the process was lawful and the dismissal of his case.

Another case pending at the Central Administrative Court is from another rejected candidate, Ratchasub Nishida, who asked the court to revoke the selection of 22 candidates for the second list.

Ratchasub petitioned the court to consider whether the Frequency Allocation Law, which determined the composition of the selection panel, was itself unconstitutional. The court referred the issue to the Constitution Court on July 14.

Ratchasub also claimed that six members of the selection panel came from organisations that were not registered with state agencies as juristic persons, so they should not have been appointed to the panel.

In another legal challenge, Tarit Pengdit, chief of the Department of Special Investigation, said yesterday that the DSI special-cases panel chaired by Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra would consider today whether to take over the department's ongoing probe of the process of selecting the 44 NBTC candidates.

The NBTC commissioners must convene within 15 days to select a chairman and two vice chairmen, and then the prime minister will submit their names for royal endorsement.

NBTC commissioner General Sukit Khamasundara is expected to be voted chairman, while Air Chief Marshal Thares Punsri is expected to be one of the vice chairmen. He will be in charge of the broadcasting sector.

The NBTC is to set up two five-member committees to oversee the telecom sector and the broadcasting sector respectively. The vice chairmen will each chair one of these two committees.

In a related matter, the National Telecommunications Commission, which now has only five members, will continue to hold regular weekly meetings until it is officially replaced by the NBTC.

NTC commissioner Natee Sukonrat, who was selected as an NBTC commissioner, will resign from the NTC within 15 days. This will leave four active NTC commissioners. That is enough to constitute a quorum to continue the function of the NTC, which now acts on the NBTC's behalf.