Push for new charter gathers steam
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As Wednesday's reopening of Parliament draws nearer, so too does the amendment of the Constitution.
The Pheu Thai Party and the red shirts have lately been telling the public that they would push for amendment of the Constitution during the new legislative session, as pledged during the party’s election campaign.
Pheu Thai party-list MP Weng Tojirakarn said yesterday that when the proper time comes, the party's key members would propose changing Article 291 of the Constitution to pave the way for the establishment of a new charter drafting assembly.
The preliminary plan says the assembly members would come from an election to represent each of the 77 provinces, plus 20 other members drawn from among academics who had never worked for the 2006 military junta or worked for any agency or person appointed by the coup-makers. They must also show outstanding achievements related to democracy.
“The criteria for charter framer candidates are not too specific, as we want to be open to public participation. They might be really general, such as a minimum age, and not being insane. We don’t want to specify academic knowledge or expertise as we can get that from the 20 academics,” Weng said.
It is clear that the 215 academics who joined the National Legislative Assembly in 2006, the 100 academics who were selected by the 1,982 members of the National Assembly to join the Constitution Drafting Assembly, and some academics who helped the work of the Surayud Chulanont government will not be eligible.
Considering what the leader of the charter amendment movement says, it is very likely that the academics belonging to the Nitirat Group, or “red-shirt academics” would be selected.
Weng, however, said a group’s political colour association should not be an issue, but the Pheu Thai slogan, “Returning happiness to the Thai people and returning democracy to the people”, should be kept in mind.
It is necessary to select “academics with a democratic heart” for the job as it is difficult to believe that the academics who had worked for the Council for National Security or the Surayud government would be fully democratic.
The charter-amendment process starts with the charter drafters asking the people which Constitution they prefer as a model – the 1997 or the 2007 version, Weng said. After that, seven to nine months would be given for them to write the new charter before putting it to a public referendum.
Thida Thawornseth, Weng’s wife, who is now acting chairwoman of the red-shirt movement, has said the group would bring back the 1997 Constitution and just throw away the 2007 Constitution.
The husband said there was an agreement in principle, but there were differences in opinion on the details. It cannot be said now whether the 2007 Constitution would be completely revoked and the 1997 charter reinstated in its entirety. It would be up to the people's decision and the work of the new charter drafters.
Weng said the Constitution must be changed to ensure that supreme power belongs to the people. The 2007 Constitution has some flaws and should be amended. Besides Article 309, which is a provisional chapter approving the coup-makers’ acts, according to the current charter, only four votes of the election commissioners are needed to impeach MP Jatuporn Promphan, a red-shirt leader, even though he got the support of 15.7 million voters. This round of charter drafting will be a good chance to change any of the laws issued by coup-makers since 1947, as they were written with the tips of guns, Weng said.
