3 failed senatorial candidates lose bid to annul results
Court rejects case saying collusion and manipulation claims fall under EC’s jurisdiction
The Supreme Court’s Election Cases Division on Thursday dismissed a lawsuit filed by three failed senatorial candidates seeking to annul the election results.
The lawsuit was filed against the director of the national round of the Senate election and the Election Commission (EC) by the failed candidates Pol Lt-General Khamrop Panyakaew, Jirat Jaemsawang, and Natthanan Thongdee.
In the lawsuit, they alleged that they had detected signs of collusion and manipulation in the last round of voting on June 26, and asked the court to annul the director’s order to endorse the results. They even asked the court to cancel the EC’s endorsement of the 200 new senators.
In its decision on Thursday, the election division reasoned that Khamrop could not be a plaintiff in this case because he would be violating the double jeopardy principle or participating in repeated proceedings, which is prohibited by court trial procedures.
Khamrop had previously filed a similar lawsuit with another failed candidate, Prayud Saenwirat, but the court had rejected this lawsuit on grounds that the power to file such a suit only lay with the EC, not the candidates.
The court added that Jirat and Natthanan were not in a position to file the lawsuit either as it was the EC’s job to decide if there were any irregularities in the election or not.
The court said if the EC suspected fraud or collusion, it would be the one to turn to the court and seek annulment of the election results.
Based on these facts, the election court decided to reject the three failed candidates’ request to issue an injunction to suspend the Senate election’s results.
