Committee against using Article 44 to grant amnesty
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THE RECONCILIATION committee has decided to remove the proposal for using Article 44 to grant amnesty to people involved in past political conflicts from its reconciliation report.
It said legal mechanisms and procedures proposed already should be enough.
However, it decided to attach the recommendation – along with others by the National Reform Council’s members during their deliberation on the committee’s report on July 21 – in the appendix to let those in power make the decision themselves.
The committee spent almost four hours yesterday reviewing all the recommendations by reformers as well as around 100 representatives of those affected by past political conflicts invited last week for two closed-door forums.
A source crafting the report said the content of the report remained mostly unchanged as many of the reformers’ recommendations were received well by the committee’s proposed mechanisms in the report.
Some points needed to be added to make them complete; for instance, the agenda concerning creation of a supportive environment for co-existence. The reformers had suggested the committee specify key measures, including continued dialogue as well as negotiations to help boost reconciliation.
The critical point of contention was the adoption of Article 44 by Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha, who is also head of the National Council for Peace and Order (NCPO), to give amnesty to people involved in political conflict.
A source said the committee decided to not add this recommendation to its third agenda, which is about the justice facilitation processes, including amnesty.
A source said the panel believed that the proposed legal mechanisms and procedures should be enough to ensure justice. However, it did not want to rule out all possibilities. So, it attached this recommendation along with some others in the appendix of the report and is letting those in power decide.
“Now we have heard from both sides in the forums saying although they had differences in political stances, they both do not wish to see each side resorting to violence to solve their disagreements.
“I count this as a sign for success in the amnesty steps we have proposed as it has implied that they acknowledge the right and the wrong, although they have not yet admitted clearly that what they have done was bad for others,” said the source.
Buntoon Srethasirote, the committee member, insisted that amnesty was only one of the mechanisms for the building of reconciliation and urged the public not to focus merely on that alone.
He said to be able to bring back reconciliation, all proposals in the report must be implemented as a package, ranging from establishing facts to building a supportive environment for co-existence, which is long-term work.
“Amnesty may be something tangible that people wish to see, but it’s not everything. To build reconciliation, there are steps and they should come as a package,” said Buntoon.
The committee has not yet settled when exactly it will submit the report to the NRC.
