Charter drafters adopt Cabinet's ideas on National Strategic Reform and Reconciliation Commission
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As recommended by the Cabinet, the Constitution Drafting Committee may include the prime minister, plus the Parliament President as members of the National Strategic Reform and Reconciliation Commission to prevent criticism that the NSRRC's powers overlap
Cabinet suggested that the NSRRC be made up of 20 members, 11 of them ex-officio, including the heads of legislative, executive and judicial branches, the Supreme Commander, heads of the three military branches, chief of the National Police, former Parliament president, former PM, former Supreme Court president and nine specialists.
In regard to Cabinet’s proposal CDC spokesman Kamnoon Sidhisamarn said yesterday the CDC had not decided yet on the number of commissioners.
The NSRRC will have nothing to do with the National Reform Movement Council and no links to the new charter. It will serve a term as long as for the National Reform Committee, he said.
Charter writers may allow politicians to join the commission but they have yet to establish the working mechanism for the commission.
The CDC would resolve within two weeks all issues that have attracted interest and debate, such as whether senators should all be elected or selected or come from a hybrid system.
The CDC had not come under any pressure from the National Council for Peace and Order to make all senators selected, he said.
The charter drafters wants senators to come from various professional groups but believe they may not win elections, so they plan to have 123 of them selected to the Senate and other senators elected.
The CDC believed it was important to maintain the principle of a mixed elected and indirectly elected system for senators to differentiate the Upper House from the Lower House, he said.
The CDC was likely to adjust methods that had called for four committees to select senate candidates, he added.
