Senate president lists the upper house’s achievements since May 2019
In the last ordinary meeting of the current House of Senate on Tuesday, president Pornpetch Wichitcholchai reported on the achievements of upper house over the past five years.
The 12th batch of senators, made up of 250 members appointed by the King following the approval of the National Council for Peace and Order in May 2019, will complete their terms on May 10.
Pornpetch said that from May 22, 2019 to April 9, 2024, the Senate met 258 times, with a total meeting time of 1,579 hours and 55 minutes.
The upper house considered a total of 54 drafts of acts, 37 of which were approved, 10 were amended and then approved, four were approved in association with the ad hoc committees, two are still being considered by the ad hoc committees, and one draft was rejected.
14 emergency decrees were also approved by the Senate during its term.
In its meetings, the Senate has posted 488 inquiries: 167 of them were verbal, of which 59 were answered and 108 were dropped; 321 inquiries were submitted by document, of which 170 had to be answered in meetings (115 answered, 6 pending, and 49 dropped), and 151 answered in the Royal Gazette (112 answered, 19 pending, and 20 dropped).
Pornpetch added that the House of Senate also selected individuals to assume legislative positions 58 times, considered the studies by ad hoc committees on 363 topics, considered 225 annual reports of government agencies and organisations, reported the progress of national strategy implementation on 24 topics, and considered complaints about ethics of senators filed by the ethics committee on two occasions,
The current batch of senators will continue to perform their duties after their term ends on May 10 until the new batch is elected and sworn in, as stipulated in the 2017 Constitution.
