'Crisis committee' a back door to dictatorship

What is important is not that the constitution is the best Thailand has ever had, but whether it forms a concise basis for true democracy and political stability.

One highly respected Thai writer, Songkran Grachangnetara, says it does not. The idea of a “crisis committee”, he says, is “constitutional heresy”. Of Article 112 on lese majeste, he says, “Putting the fear of god into people is doing a grave disservice to the great legacy of His Majesty the King.”

The core of democracy is accountability under the law. It is not the fact that there will be 77 elected senators, but whether the principles of democracy are embodied in the constitution. In Thailand’s case, it would seem they are not.

The constitution should not delegate responsibilities to a committee to prevent military coups. It should be monitored and its principles upheld by the Constitutional Court, the supreme court of the land, not by a committee. The idea of an appointed “crisis super-board” is a sure recipe for controversy. People must learn to respect the law, which must be policed and adjudicated fairly.

Democracy is a form of government controlled by laws. It is about the law, not committees, and the paramount law is the Constitution.

There are different ways of working within a democracy, but there is only one form of true democracy – and that is not a “Thai-style form in accordance with cultural norms”.

JC Wilcox