FRIDAY, March 29, 2024
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Yingluck spends Bt2.65m a month, court told in failed injunction bid

Yingluck spends Bt2.65m a month, court told in failed injunction bid

Ex-premier Yingluck Shinawatra spends a staggering Bt2.65 million per month to cover personal and family expenses as well as her visits to former constituents, she told a court recently in a failed injunction request.

Of that Bt2.65 million outlay, Bt450,000 is spent during visits to her former constituents and supporters in Bangkok and other provinces, while about Bt1 million is listed as household expenses.
In addition, the former prime minister spends another Bt200,000 per month to cover her young son’s education and other expenses. She told the court her expenditure on legal expenses is about Bt200,000 per month, while her personal spending budget is about Bt800,000.
The figures were cited to back her petition for the Central Administrative Court to grant an injunction ahead of the government’s bid to seize her assets.
Yingluck is facing a civil liability lawsuit in which the government is seeking Bt35 billion in compensation to cover alleged financial damage caused by her previous government’s ricepledging scheme.
The government’s factfinding committee concluded that the unlimited ricepledging scheme had led to a Bt500 billion loss for the government. Yingluck, it contended, was partly accountable for the financial damages due to her failed supervision of the scheme.
On Monday, the court by a majority dismissed Yingluck’s request for an injunction, reasoning that the government had not proceeded to seize her assets at this stage.
A minority of two judges on the court’s panel had argued for granting the injunction on grounds that Yingluck would be damaged by the government’s civil liability action while other related lawsuits were still pending in court.
Panuphun Chairat, deputy directorgeneral of the Central Administrative Court, took the view that impartiality in this civil liability lawsuit seeking the massive compensation from the expremier was questionable given that the National Council for Peace and Order (NCPO) had seized power from a civilian government in 2014.
Another judge on the panel, Watchira Chobtaeng, said that the government’s attempt to seek the massive compensation from Yingluck may not be legal. In addition, the expremier would not be able to live a normal life if the government moved to seize her assets while all related lawsuits were still pending.
The two judges believed that the court should provide temporary protection to Yingluck by granting the injunction.
 

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