Red shirts petition for charter court judges' impeachment as Jatuporn calls for mass action

Red shirts gathered in their thousands yesterday to sign a petition letter seeking the impeachment of the seven Constitution Court judges by the Senate. By midday they had already managed to gather the 20,000 signatures required by law to launch the impeachment process. The petition was handed over to a Deputy House Speaker early yesterday afternoon by the chairperson of the Democratic Alliance Against Dictatorship (DAAD), Thida Thavornseth Tojirakarn.

 

Jatuporn accused the court of wanting to destroy democracy. “We don’t need to have elections anymore. Anyone who wants to become prime minister can apply to the Constitution Court,” Jatuporn said on stage. “We discovered today that the Constitution Court has become a redundant part of the democratic system.”

 

Jatuporn said people will not wait until yet another government is formed inside an army barracks, but will come out to the streets to fight now.

 

Those interviewed at random confessed, however, that they lacked the legal knowledge to say whether the court’s recent ruling that the Parliament must halt the third reading on the Constitution amendment bill was legitimate. They also said they regarded the move by the court as an attempted “judicial coup”. Legal experts from both sides of the political divide have expressed differing opinions as to whether the Court has overstepped its authority or not.

 

“[The court] won’t survive if it abuses its power by overthrowing the people’s government. In Burma, such power [against the people] couldn’t last,” said Somporn Taejalue, a 47-year-old native of Chiang Rai, now a small business owner based in Bangkok.

 

Somporn said she no longer watches mainstream television news, but tuned in to pro-red shirt Voice TV for news about the court controversy.

 

“People voted the MPs in so they can be our legislators to rewrite the charter,” Somporn said angrily in front of the Parliament.

 

Sixty-three-year-old Bangkokian Sa-ard Boonsomkiat, another red shirt who came to sign the petition, said it is painful to see the judiciary interfere with elected government again and again.

 

“People won’t put up with it this time. People know what’s happening now with Facebook and the Internet and other things. This is a judicial coup,” Sa-ard concluded.

 

Neither was sure if the petition would eventually lead to the impeachment of the Constitution Court judges, but said they had to come out in a show of force.

 

One speaker told the crowd not to leave until they were told to, adding that they would gather again today.

 

“We won’t stop until we are told to stop,” said the man on the stage.

 

Security around the Parliament was more relaxed than during the tense yellow-shirt and multicoloured shirt protests last week in front of the Parliament, although traffic around the Parliament ended up being closed off nonetheless.