Experts push for inquisitorial system of justice

The Constitution Drafting Commission (CDC) on Wednesday held a seminar to hear public opinions regarding the organic law concerning the constitutional procedure.
The seminar was aimed at gathering opinions on three points: whether the current procedure was appropriate; how people should bring constitutional disputes to the Constitutional Court; and, what principles the judgement should be based on.
Constitutional Court judge Charan Phakdithanakul told the forum that although in theory the Court should adopt the inquisitorial legal system, actual real practice had met with several challenges.
He pointed out that the difficulties stemmed from an unclear definition of the inquisitorial legal system. The judge urged involved agents to come to an agreement on the extent of the adoption of such a system to ensure everyone was on the same page when it came to real practice.
Charan said current practice was influenced by the adversarial system despite the theory. He proposed that the organic law open the way for the Court to be less rigid and conduct the trial by having both sides join a meeting with the judge to reach a mutual agreement, he said.
He said this was to ensure that cases in the court were not settled based on the merits of legal expertise and technicality.
Regarding the rights of people to bring cases to the Court, he welcomed the CDC move to enable people to do so with fewer conditions compared to the previous legislation.
However, Charan also proposed that the organic law prescribe legitimate rules so that while people could approach the Court on their own, they did not flood the Court with unnecessary cases.
Charan said judgements in the Constitutional Court should be delivered as an agreement of all judges while each of them could also offer their personal opinions in the cases.
In addition, he also proposed that besides the verdict the Court should be able to give guidelines on procedures following the verdict.
Supoj Kaimuk, a former Constitutional Court judge and current CDC member, had a similar opinion on the serious adoption of the inquisitorial system.
He said that it was time that such a system be improved, suggesting that the Constitutional Court should hold a seminar on the matter so that all involved agencies could have mutual understanding about the procedures under the system.
The constitutional procedure organic law was among 10 legislations the new Constitution required the CDC to complete.
At the seminar to gather opinion about the law, many individuals from the judiciary as well as from the current legislative and executive branches joined the session to hear about the new law and related suggestions.
CDC chairman Meechai Ruchupan shared some key features written in the Constitution regarding the Constitutional Court. He said the CDC aimed to make the Court more proactive by enabling it to give a verdict in response to points raised by inquiring agencies without actual disputes taking place.
In addition, Meechai said the new Constitution also allowed people to bring cases to Court in case the government agencies failed to fulfil their duties required by the Constitution.