Assembly law needs careful thought

The Assembly Bill, which requires protesters to inform authorities of their activities in advance, sailed through its first reading at the National Legislative Assembly last week.
The vote was 182-0 with four abstentions.
According to the draft legislation, protesters would have to give the authorities at least 24-hours notice before a planned protest is due to be held and detail the purpose of a gathering, where it will be held and its duration.
The draft law stipulates that protests would be prohibited within 150 metres of any royal palace and residence.
Protesters would also be barred from gathering within 50m of Government House, Parliament House and other important government buildings and courthouses.
If a rally were deemed violent, the authorities could seek court approval to end it. But who would make the decision on whether a protest is too violent?
Offenders could face a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison.
The bill stipulates that protestors are “required” to inform the authorities in advance of a planned gathering. It doesn’t say “seek permission”.
In Thailand, the authorities have a tendency to define things the way they want. Indeed, the ambiguity surrounding the military’s rules of engagement in the May 2010 crackdown on red-shirt demonstrators still haunts us.
The proposed law encourages local authorities in Bangkok and the provinces to provide a space specifically designated for demonstrations that would not require protesters to inform the authorities ahead of time. Again, there is a big difference between “encouraged” and “required”.
In a free society, stipulations on mass demonstrations are mainly centred on the well being of the general public. The use of weapons or firearms by demonstrators and attacks on innocent bystanders are among the issues that most countries have placed at the top of their agenda.
While most sensible people would agree that protestors should leave places like Government House, courthouses and royal palaces alone, one can’t help but notice the political slant of the proposed legislation. In a way, the whole idea of asking permission before staging a protest defies logic and human nature.
It’s almost like a girlfriend asking her boyfriend if she could be mad at him for cheating with another woman – or vice versa.
First of all, we need to examine our own logic and motivation behind this legislation. Are we pushing for this legislation because we don’t like the mass political demonstrations over the past decade, or because it reflects the kind of society we want to become?
Moreover, the government could be digging its own grave without knowing it. We only have to look back to the past charters like the 1997 Constitution to illustrate this point.
Back then, we told ourselves we didn’t like smaller political parties trading their handful of parliamentary seats for Cabinet posts. So we came up with a constitution that curbed such practices by strengthening political parties as an institution via the party-list system.
But nobody foresaw that the charter drafters they were creating a Frankenstein – the Thai Rak Thai Party, which was not only large in size but uncontrollable. Like the old saying goes: Be careful what you wish for, because you might just get it.
This time around, are we certain we are not making a mistake? Most of us may not like mass demonstrations that obstruct traffic and local businesses but imagine if there was no way to let off steam. The consequences could be disastrous for the government.
It’s a fine line to walk, indeed. And the current crop of lawmakers needs to seriously do more soul searching and ask themselves what kind of country we want Thailand to be.