People must solve political strife as 'courts can't always do it'
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The Constitutional Court cannot solve a political crisis and can only defer the timing of a military coup when there are political conflicts, according to a King Prajadhipok's Institute (KPI) study released yesterday and presented at a Bangkok seminar.
Jaratpong Klangkorn, a lecturer at Northwestern University who was involved in the research paper entitled “The Role of the Constitutional Court in Solving Political Conflicts”, concluded that only by returning power to the people so they exercise their electoral rights could a political dispute be truly settled.
Jaratpong said that politicians use all means available to them to secure Cabinet posts while the Constitutional Court was often perceived as being linked to politics, leading to allegations of double standards in its rulings.
He cited the court’s removal of prime minister Samak Sundaravej due to his appearance on a television cooking show as an example.
Jaratpong said it was beyond the ability of the Constitutional Court to solve political conflicts.
Thawilwadee Bureekul, director of the Research and Development Office at KPI, said at the seminar that now that Thailand was entering another reform period, political institutions should be thoroughly studied.
She said political institutions should be composed of not just the executive branch but the legislative and judicial branches and local administrative organisations. She said political institutions had failed in the past because they were not effective, thus political reform was needed.
Thawilwadee said that KPI would invite academics to conduct a joint study and come up with reform proposals, adding that there could be no peace in society as long as democracy was weak.
Kla Samudavanija, an employee at the Office of the Constitutional Court, also stressed that ultimate power lies with the public and not the Constitutional Court. He suggested that politics should be removed from the judiciary.
Ekachai Chainuvati, deputy dean of law at Siam University, said that people should not confuse the Constitutional Court with the constitution and suggested that the Constitutional Court avoid making political rulings.
Ekachai said the main responsibility of the Constitutional Court was to scrutinise laws to ensure that they did not contradict the charter.
