Panel to screen all impeachment cases to be set up
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A committee will be set up to screen all impeachment cases before they are submitted to the National Legislative Assembly (NLA), the assembly's vice president Surachai Liengboonlertchai said yesterday.
He added that the ad hoc committee that considered the draft regulations on NLA’s meeting procedures had agreed with the proposal to set up a committee to screen impeachment cases.
The NLA is scheduled to meet on Thursday and Friday to scrutinise the impeachment issue and will deliberate on the second reading of the draft.
Surachai said NLA members, who reserved the right to remove the impeachment power from the draft, had agreed not to do so.
Responding to criticism that the process of impeaching politicians would go against the junta’s reconciliation plan, Surachai argued that the process would be done in accordance with regulations.
He said those who had committed corruption must be punished or else the public would not find the junta’s measures acceptable.
Meanwhile, National Anti-Corruption Commission chairman Panthep Klanarongran said his office was waiting for the NLA to conclude its regulations before it would submit the impeachment cases.
Before the May 22 coup, the anti-graft body had decided to submit former prime minister Yingluck Shinawatra’s impeachment case to the Senate after charging her with dereliction of duty over the rice-pledging scheme.
