Govt rejects court request for opinion on charter changes

Deputy Prime Minister Wissanu Krea-ngam said the government had nothing to do with the matter.

“The court may have viewed that the government is related to this matter. But in fact the Cabinet and the National Council for Peace and Order have nothing to do with this,” he said.

He suggested that the National Reform Steering Assembly (NRSA) and National Legislative Assembly (NLA), which had proposed the additional referendum question, should be able to provide the best opinions on the matter.

The Constitutional Court is reviewing the draft-charter revisions made by the Constitution Drafting Commission (CDC) to determine whether the changes are in line with the extra question. 

In the August 7 referendum, most voters approved the draft constitution and the additional question to allow NCPO-appointed senators to join elected MPs in the selection of prime ministers for five years after the next Parliament convenes. 

The Constitutional Court’s judicial review is required by the post-coup interim charter to determine whether the revisions comply with the plebiscite results. 

The court had requested opinions from the Cabinet, NRSA, NLA and CDC regarding the matter.

Wissanu yesterday also dismissed a report that United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon had expressed concern about the government’s road map to the next general election, due to be held next year.

“As far as I know, officially there has been no concern [expressed] about that matter. He congratulated Thailand on the peaceful referendum and asked for things to continue as set out in the road map,” the deputy PM said.

“The prime minister confirmed with him [Ban Ki-moon] that there will be an election in 2017,” he added.

Meanwhile, CDC spokesman Udom Rathamarit said yesterday that the Election Commission had agreed with the constitution drafters that a new law on political parties should allow the formation of new parties to be “not too difficult and not too easy”.

Representatives from the CDC and the EC met on Thursday to discuss the content of the organic laws to be written for the promulgation of a new constitution later this year.

Both sides agreed that the new law should encourage ordinary people to form and run political parties and should prevent wealthy people from dominating parties, Udom said.

CDC chairman Meechai Ruchupan had said on Thursday that the charter drafters would take the “middle path” in writing the organic law to make it easy for ordinary individuals to set up new political parties. 

“In order to ensure the birth of ‘people’s parties’, we should set rules that are proper and practical,” he said.

In a related development, Wissanu said yesterday that the government would propose three new laws to the NLA aimed at preventing costly populist government projects in the future.

He said the bills involved amendments to the current laws on state procurement, budgeting and government financial discipline.

“Populist policies will be prohibited,” he stressed, adding that the amendments for stricter financial and budgetary discipline would be applied to the current administration first.

“We will set a precedent for the next governments,” he said.