Many judges opposed to changes to Judicial Commission

 

Senior Supreme Court judge Sriamporn Salikup said he and Supreme Court judge Somchart Thanyawinitkul would today submit the list of 2,079 – about half the total number of judges across the country – to the Office of the Court of Justice.

He said the office would be asked to send the list to related agencies in protest against a move by the Constitution Drafting Committee (CDC) to allow judges who receive disciplinary punishment by the Judicial Commission to appeal such decisions with the Administrative Court.

He said if this was the case, the new charter would destroy the structure of court authority and cause the justice system to fail. 

“The Judicial Commission will not be able to effectively punish judges who commit disciplinary offences. The Administrative Court would have more power than the Judicial Commission, which is the highest personnel management agency of the courts of justice,” he said.

He said the judges who are against the move consist of 209 Supreme Court judges, 512 judges from the Court of Appeals and 1,358 judges from the Lower Court.

Sri-amporn had earlier led 1,380 judges to protest against the move to allow more than one third of non-judges to become members of the Judicial Commission on the grounds of interference in the independence of the justice system. 

The CDC had already scrapped the provision in question that Sri-amporn and other judges opposed.