Senator asks court to rule on move to change Article 68

The court has scheduled today to discuss whether to accept the case, court secretary-general Chaovana Traimas said.
Somchai Sawaengkarn, a member of the so-called Group of 40 Senators, said he invoked Article 68 itself to seek a ruling from the top court on the bill to amend the article.
The government-backed bill seeks to amend Article 68 so that people are required to submit petitions only via the Office of the Attorney General if they want to file complaints to the Constitution Court against moves they regard as seeking to overthrow the constitutional monarchy.
In his petition to the court, Somchai alleged that Parliament President Somsak Kiartsuranond collaborated with 311 coalition MPs and senators to violate the charter and abused his authority by allowing debate on the bill to amend Article 68 to proceed.
Somchai said in his petition the amendment would restrict people’s right to participate in upholding the democratic system.
He said the amendment would also go against the Constitution Court’s earlier ruling that people could invoke Article 68 to seek a ruling from the court directly.
The petition asked the court to order Somsak and coalition MPs and senators to stop the debate on the Article 68 bill.
The senator also asked the court to order the dissolution of the Pheu Thai, Chart Thai Pattana, Chart Pattana, Palang Chon, Mahachon and New Democracy parties for jointly sponsoring the Article 68-amendment bill,
He said he would like the court to issue an injunction to suspend deliberation pending a ruling on the matter.