CDC won't rule out organ to deal with political crises

THE IDEA of a “special organ to break deadlocks during critical times” has not been completely ruled out from the charter, spokesman of the Constitution Drafting Commis-sion (CDC), Udom Rathamarit, said yesterday.

The CDC also discussed the controversial Article 7, which was claimed by conflicting parties to have royal power to appoint an unelected PM to break a political impasse, he said. 

Udom said that to resolve the issue caused by the controversial article, constitution writers had agreed that a court be authorised to step in and find a legal or constitutional way out.

Thus they had initially agreed that the Constitutional Court should be responsible for carrying out the will of the charter when the country faced legal deadlocks, the spokesman said. 

“It is not the same with the NSRRC [National Strategic Reform and Reconciliation Commission], which had been designed to be involved more with political matters,” he added.

The charter-writing panel, however, said during the past week that it would try to rely on existing agencies to steer the country out of crises.

Udom said a new body might not be necessary, including anything like the earlier proposed crisis panel, believed to be one of the major reasons the previous charter draft was aborted in early September.

“The Constitutional Court is not the answer to the NCPO’s [National Council for Peace and Order] proposal to include a mechanism to break deadlocks during critical times for that matter,” he said.

This could mean that such a mechanism could be composed of multiple organs, he said, refusing to confirm whether there would be any novel body or whether it would be like the controversial crisis panel.

Deputy Prime Minister Wissanu Krea-ngam said yesterday that the NSRRC was not necessary. Asked if the Constitutional Court could help break deadlocks, he replied that it depended on what deadlocks we are talking about. In fact, most countries do that and it is not uncommon, he said, adding that eventually when there was a dead-end, there would be someone to solve the problem.

Democrat leader Abhisit Vejjajiva said that if there were to be an organ to assist the country during the transitional period, it should not be anything like the NSRRC put forward by the previous CDC led by Borwornsak Uwanno. That crisis panel, he said, had excessive powers and was without checks and balances.

Meanwhile, Gothom Arya, a political observer and a former election commissioner, commented that any structure to oversee the country during critical times should be able to link up with the people.

He suggested that a moderator or facilitator committee be set up with the agreement of the three powers – executive, legislative, and judicial.

The committee should comprise stakeholders, he said, and give advice to relevant bodies that should have the final say. 

Attasit Pankaew, a political scientist from Thammasat University, on the other hand argued that the country might not really need such body. He said Thailand had a problem of “manufactured crises”, which people have to think carefully how to tackle.