Senate passage looks assured

The main obstacle to the bill may now lie not in Parliament, but with the Constitutional Court.

Senate Speaker Nikom Wairatpanij said earlier that the bill, which passed the third reading in the Lower House last Friday, would be submitted to the Senate by Friday, or no later than next Monday.

Usually, the Senate spends only one day on the first reading and a maximum of two weeks scrutinising it in committee and on the second reading. Lawmakers will likely be able to pass the bill into law before the end of the current session of the Senate on November 28. The government could speed up the Senate process by manipulating the selection of like-minded senators into the committee to avoid dramatic changes to the bill. Without major amendments, the bill could be passed quickly from the committee to the second reading. 

Of the 149 senators, less than 70 have expressed opposition to the amnesty bill. The majority in the Senate would vote to pass the bill unless there was strong opposition and chaos outside the Parliament due to ongoing protests led by the opposition Democrat Party. 

But the amnesty bill, even if successful in the lower and upper houses, may not be passed into law since the Con-stitutional Court may be requested to rule whether its text and processes were constitutional. The bill, which was amended from the original draft, would grant amnesty to all concerned parties in political struggle since 2004. Protesters claim the bill would allow two former premiers – Thaksin Shinawatra and Abhisit Vejjajiva – to be freed from charges of manipulating political chaos and the bloody crackdown on the protests. The original draft of the bill granted amnesty only to people who expressed their political opinions and joined street rallies.