Court defers review on Article 68 amendment
The Constitutional Court yesterday postponed its review of four petitions against the Article 68 amendment, pending the filing of written explanations by the Parliament president and Senate speaker.
Court judges decided to wait for Parliament President Somsak Kiatsuranont and Senate Speaker Nikom Wairatphanich to submit statements to the court for the petition filed by Warin Thiamcharas before doing the review.
Warin’s petition was among four submitted to the court, asking it to consider whether the ongoing process to amend Article 68 was an attempt to topple the constitutional government or not.
The amendment to Article 68 of the Constitution would prevent individuals from petitioning the high court directly. They would need to go through the attorney general instead.
The court has combined the four petitions into one review process.
Another petition was filed by Somjet Boothanom. The court yesterday allowed two complainants, senators Jittipoj Wiriyaroj and Thaweesak Kidbanjong, to submit a written defence in Somjet’s petition by June 13 after the two said they were served with the petition on May 20.
Two more petitions against the Article 68 amendment have been filed by the People’s Alliance for Democracy and the Democrat Party. The court has yet to consider whether to accept the two latest petitions for review or not.
Also yesterday, the court decided to reject a petition by former senator Ruangkrai Leekitwattana, who sought a ruling to disband the Democrat Party. Ruangkrai alleged that the Democrats violated Article 68 by joining the vetting process of the bill to amend Article 68 – so the Democrats should be deemed to be seeking to overthrow the government and thus disbanded. The court decided the Democrats had not acted or done anything deemed to violate Article 68 so far.
Meanwhile, a small group of red shirts, the Pro-Democracy People’s Radio group, held a demonstration against the Constitutional Court in front of the court yesterday. They called for the court to reject all the petitions against proposed changes to the charter.
Sornrak Malaithong, spokesman of the group, said they had also filed a suit with the Criminal Court, alleging that Constitutional Court judges had abused their authority by accepting the petitions.
