Suranand: PM may seek royal nod for charter-amendment bill tomorrow

The Cabinet secretariat was proofing the bill in detail, he said.

 

Senate Speaker Nikom Wairatpanij said he had passed on to his secretariat the petitions from the Democrats and some senators against the charter amendment and instructed staff to finish verifying the petitions and summit them to the Constitutional Court quickly.

 

“I have told [them] to hurry up so nobody can attack me as standing in their way,” he said. 

 

The parliamentarians cited Article 154 to oppose the legislation after it was passed by Parliament, but before the prime minister submits it for royal endorsement.

 

The House-Senate meeting on Saturday approved the charter-amendment bill, which will change the Senate to an all-elected chamber and remove appointed senators. The prime minister must submit the law for royal endorsement within 20 days, according to the law.

 

The Constitutional Court last week accepted for review the petitions against the charter amendment submitted by the Democrats and some senators but refused to issue an injunction against the third reading.

 

Democrat Party leader Abhisit Vejjajiva has kept asking the government to delay the submission for royal endorsement. He said yesterday that the government should wait for the court’s ruling and should not be afraid of the 20-day deadline, as the court might issue any order before the deadline. 

 

But the damage would be even greater if the decree goes on with the process and the court later rules it unconstitutional, Abhisit said.

 

Pheu Thai legal expert Chusak Sirinil said the party’s strategists would next week discuss how to defend the charter amendment. It would insist that the Constitutional Court has no mandate to accept and consider the complaints. Pheu Thai Party spokesman Prompong Nopparit said the party’s meeting tomorrow would summon party-list MP Mingkwan Sangsuwan and Uttaradit MP Kanok Limtragool to clarify why they were absent from the joint meeting on Saturday for the third reading.

 

“[Attending] parliamentary meetings is a duty. All [MPs] must come. It’s their right how they vote, but when they skip a meeting they need to explain to the party’s key members and executives what the reasons were,” he said.

 

They would be disciplined if they lacked sound reasons.

 

“The party is the ruling party. We have to come and make a quorum.

 

“We don’t force [them] about voting, it’s their choice. If they were sick, a dozen MPs were also sick and they came [to the meeting]. If they were admitted to the ICU, they had to come with their saline tubes,” he said.

 

Prompong also said he believed the Democrats’ video showing Pheu Thai MPs allegedly using their absent colleagues’ identification cards to register their attendance during a charter amendment meeting was doctored. 

 

The Democrats should have first submitted the footage to the House committee to investigate, he said.