Charter Court sets Jan 24 for verdict in Pita’s iTV shareholding case

The Office of the Constitutional Court announced on its website that the court had finished hearing testimonies of three key witnesses in the iTV case on Wednesday and it would read out the verdict on January 24.

The three witnesses summoned by the court to testify on Wednesday were Sawaeng Boonmee, secretary-general of the Office of the Election Commission, Pita, and Kimsirithaweechai, who chaired the iTV shareholders’ meeting and signed the minutes.

The EC had asked the court to terminate Pita's status as a member of Parliament on grounds that he had violated Article 101 and Article 98 of the charter that prohibited MP candidates from holding shares in a media firm.

Pita has been suspended as an MP after the court accepted the case for judicial review.

Pita has argued that iTV was no longer an active media company and he was holding the shares as an executor for his relatives.

The court office said the judges had finished interrogating the three witnesses on Wednesday and they would read the verdict at 2pm on January 24.

In another case against the Move Forward Party, the court scheduled December 25 for key witnesses to testify at 9.30am.

In the second case, a complainant, Thirayut Suwankesorn, asked the court to consider whether Pita and Move Forward had attempted to overthrow the constitutional monarchy system of governance by campaigning to abolish Article 112 during the campaign for the May 14 general election.

Thirayut asked the court whether the election campaigns by Pita and Move Forward violated Article 49 of the charter, which prohibited any action deemed detrimental to constitutional monarchy.