New charter will be a monstrosity of compromise
Everyone is worried about the makeup of the Constitution Drafting Committee and whether members should declare their assets, but the fact is that a major blunder has already been made. A committee this size will not only take a decade to draft the charter
The constitution of the US was written by Thomas Jefferson and then reviewed by John Adams, Ben Franklin and a few other top legal minds. They suggested refinements, but the basic concept came from one man. That is how you get purity. Everything else in the world is designed by a committee and thus one monstrous compromise.
Prime Minister Prayut should have brought in three or four top law academics to draft the charter before reviewing the result with his closest aides then seeking advice on any issues they didn’t agree on.
A drafting committee the size of this one might be fair in giving everyone representation, but it creates a situation where squabbling reigns and the resultant charter, if it is ever completed, is nothing more than a mongrel. The result: Thailand will go right back where it was prior to Thaksin Shinawatra (which, I suspect, is what everyone wants).
John Arnone
