Pheu Thai issues statement to denounce Constitutional Court's ruling

The statement said the court’s ruling interfered in the affairs of the parliamentarians, and such became like coup against the ruling mandate of the people.

The statement was made in nine points as following:

1) The 312 MPs sponsored the charter amendment bill on the Senate’s composition to make the charter democratic based on the principle that the ruling mandate belongs to the people. As a result, all parliamentarians must be elected in accordance with the principles of the 1997 charter, which was the people’s constitution.

2) Article 291 of the Constitution clearly states that the power to amend the charter belongs to the Parliament. Article 291 prohibits only two changes, which are the change of the ruling system from the Constitutional Monarchy and the change of form of government. The amendment on the composition of the Senate had nothing to do with the two prohibited changes. Moreover, the Constitution Court used to rule that parliamentarians can amend the charter.

3) The Constitutional Court intentionally abused its authority in violation of the Constitution by deciding to review the petitions against the charter amendment bill. The action warranted impeachment or criminal process against the Constitutional Court judges.

4) The Constitutional Court cited the rule of law in making the ruling. But in doing so, the court interpreted and expanded its own power more than what stated in the Constitution. The rulings in the case of Article-291 amendment bill and in the Senate composition bill showed that the people’s representatives, who have received the people’s mandate to amend the charter to make it legitimate, democratic and fair, cannot amend the charter either by rewriting it entirely or changing only parts of it.

5) The citing of the rule of law was done without proper ground. The court did not cite how the international practice was done and the Constitutional Court judges themselves did not respect the principle. For example, three of the judges used to be on the panel that drafted the 2007 Constitution and one of the three used to face opposition against him taking part in the judicial review in the earlier case.  The opposition prompted him to withdraw from the earlier case but now he would not withdraw from the review of the latest case. He used to explain his view clearly that retroactive penalties can be done if the penalties are not for criminal cases. Such stand led to the dissolution of the Pheu Thai Party and five-year political ban of the Thai Rak Thai executives. And the executives were not informed of the charges against them and were not allowed to defend themselves. As a result, had the three or four judges withdrawn from the case, the ruling would have been otherwise.

6) It was extreme dangerous for democracy when the court claimed that the amendment bill violated several articles of the Constitution because the judges themselves abused their authority outside the Constitution’s scope to reach such decisions.

7) The court clearly interfered in the power of the legislative branch by ruling that the deliberation process of the bill violated meeting regulations of the Parliament. If such interference is not challenged, from now on the court will be asked to consider more cases of alleged violations of meeting regulations and the House and Senate will not be able to perform their duty.

8) After the Parliament passed the bill in the third reading and the prime minister submitted the bill for the royal command, the next step will depend as to whether the King will approve the bill or wait until 90 days without sending the bill back to the Parliament. But the court violated the King’s power by accepting the petitions against the bill for reviewing without basing its decision on any provision of the charter.

9) It would have been fine had the Constitution authorised the Constitutional Court to check the works of parliamentarians. But the Constitution does not authorise the court to do it.  As a result, the Parliament has the power to perform its duty. The duty performing of parliamentarians was also endorsed by all charters before the 1997 charter. Whether the performance of parliamentarians is good or satisfactory in the eyes of the public or suitable or not, the people will decide in elections. This is the principle of the using of the ruling mandate. The court must not violate this principle of ruling mandate because doing so was tantamount to a coup that seized the ruling power from the people.