Parliamentary meeting halted, to be continued Wednesday morning
Deputy Parliament President and Senate Speaker Nikom Wairatpanij called a meeting break and scheduled it to be resumed at 9.30am on Wednesday.
Nikom's announcement came after Deputy House Speaker Charoen Jankomol suggested so and that the meeting should be resumed after a joint whips' meeting Wednesday morning.
Joint House-Senate meeting to deliberate Constitution amendment on Tuesday took over 12 hours but finished the second reading consideration of only one Article, which is the name of the law. There are 13 Articles in total.
The meeting took a break for at least five times amid chaos and protests by parliamentarians especially the opposition Democrats.
The opposition, MPs and senators, said problems occurred because the chairmen of the meeting, Nikom and House Speaker Somsak Kiatsuranont, disallowed the minority to speak and intimidated the lawmakers by deployment of police force.
The meeting on Tuesday voted to not allow 57 lawmakers whose motions were against the bill's principle approved in the first reading to speak in the plenary.
The charter amendment bill proposes all 200 senators come from election.
If passed, the law will also remove a ban on parents, spouses and children of MPs, former MPs and political office holders, former party members, and former local politicians who have been out of their posts for less than five years, from applying as senatorial candidates. Some mandate of senators would also be changed.
