Quake halts charter amendment talks
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A House-Senate joint meeting deliberating the second reading of the Constitution amendment closed abruptly yesterday amid tsunami fears in Thailand's South.
The deliberation is scheduled to resume on April 18 and 19. Meanwhile, the third reading is scheduled for May 8, the whips said.
Yesterday was the second day of the second reading deliberation – but it did not progress much after over six hours.
Besides repeating that the government had unusually rushed the charter amendment proceedings, the Democrats - who dominated yesterday’s meeting- pointed out the report by the ad hoc committee on charter amendment contained many errors.
Around mid-day, the House Speaker called a break to allow the unhappy parliamentarians to tell the panel to correct its report.
Commenting on the amended law to add Chapter 16 “Drafting a New Constitution,” the Democrats said it could be illegal as the current charter only referred to constitutional amendment and did not say anything about drafting a new charter.
Moreover, the chapter and articles on the political system and the constitutional monarchy must be preserved, so it is impossible to write-off the whole charter, they said.
The House Speaker closed yesterday’s meeting at about 4.30pm so that MPs and senators could meet with local people.
