Red-shirt people submit 65,000 names to sponsor bill
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A red-shirt group Wednesday submitted 65,400 names of voters to sponsor a bill seeking to amend the charter to permit rewriting of a new charter draft.
The bill and names of sponsors were submitted to Parliament President Somsak Kiartsuranon at 10.30am.
The bill was submitted by Yiamyod Srimunta, chairman of the Federation of Democracy Lovers.
Yiamyord said the bill would amend Article 291 of the 2007 charter so that voters could elect 375 members of a new constitution drafting assembly directly.
Yiamyord said the direct election of CDA members would allow the CDA members to be free from influence of Parliament and politicians.
Yiamyord said the 375 CDA members would be elected based on the current 375 constituencies nationwide.
The bill would require the 375 elected members to select 37 from their number to work on the constitution drafting panel. He said the bill would also require the drafting panel to have 12 other outsiders who will be legal experts, political scientists and former senior government officials.
Yimyord admitted that his group was part of the red-shirt movement.
Somsak said the list of sponsors has yet to be verified by parliament officials.
He said the current parliamentary session will expire in three months. He is not certain whether the verification process could be done in time to allow the bill to be placed on the agenda of Parliament or not.
