“Prits” reiterates that the People’s Party has proposed a draft amendment to the constitution, overhauling ethical standards, reducing the power of the Constitutional Court, expecting the parliament to consider it on 25 Sept., aiming to submit an amendment to the Constitutional Court and Political Parties Act to resolve the issue of party dissolution, urging the government to review the referendum question, not confirming that there will be a new constitution in time for the next election.
Mr. Panusaya Wacharasindhu, a party-list MP of the Prachachon Party, said about the issue of amending the constitution that the Prachachon Party will follow a parallel path, which is to accelerate the process of drafting a new constitution to be as democratically legitimate as possible and to amend the constitution in each section on issues that are considered important and urgent. There are categories that we have already submitted and are expected to be considered on September 25th in the parliament meeting, namely, to
eliminate the consequences of the coup, whether it is the cancellation of the 20-year national strategy, the cancellation of Section 279 that overlaps with the announcement of the NCPO’s orders, including adding a category to prevent coups. Meanwhile, another category that is being prepared is the review of the powers of the Constitutional Court and independent organizations, which will have two powers to review and amend: the power to dissolve parties, and the submission of a draft amendment to the Organic Act on Political Parties to make political institutions more connected to the people. It is expected that there will be a central draft that will be jointly signed by the Political Development Committee, which is working together from many parties, and each party will submit a draft, including the Prachachon Party’s draft. The second power proposed for review is the power of ethical standards. This is a new power added in the 2017 Constitution, which sees that incorporating ethical standards into law may c
ause problems because ethics is something that everyone defines differently and is highly abstract. However, in the 2017 Constitution, it is called a monopoly on definitions and interpretations, mostly with the Constitutional Court and independent organizations, that is, the Constitutional Court defines what ethical standards are, writes them up and enforces them on all organizations. In the end, there is a request for the main organization to decide, which is the Constitutional Court. What we see as a problem is putting abstract matters in the law and giving power to a single group of organizations to define and play a major role in interpreting and deciding. What we want to see is an improvement in ethics supervision. First, we see that the ethics of politicians is important, and political responsibility is how to make the political system strong enough to monitor the work of politicians. For example, if there is a consideration of appointing someone who society considers inappropriate to be a minister, how
can we make politicians ultimately show responsibility to the public? The second is improving the ethics mechanisms in their own organizations. Since we do not have a monopoly on the Constitutional Court to determine the ethics of every organization, how can we make every organization improve their own ethics to be stronger and more effective?
“We are not saying that we do not give importance to ethics, but we believe that to solve this problem, we should not include abstract matters of this nature in the legal text of the constitution, allowing the Constitutional Court and independent organizations to monopolize the definition and play a major role in interpreting and adjudicating. Instead, each organization should have its own ethical standards that govern and enforce their own organizations, and finally, develop a stronger political system so that politicians’ ethics are something that they must be politically responsible for,” said Mr. Parit.
Mr. Parit believes that many parties see similar problems, bu
t the solutions may differ slightly according to the final process. If all parties submit their own drafts, it will end up in a joint consideration in the parliamentary meeting. We have to wait and see if it will be on September 25th. But I think that if the overall picture sees the same problem, but differs in the details of the solutions, it is a good opportunity to accept the principles and debate them in the committee level to make it more thorough and thorough.
As for the position of the Prachachon Party in drafting a new constitution, the government still adheres to the original resolution of not amending Chapters 1 and 2 of the constitution. Mr. Panusaya said that this is the position that the government has always stated, even though this time in the policy statement it may not be written as clearly as in the government of Mr. Settha Thavisin. The Prachachon Party’s position remains the same, which is that it still disagrees with the government on this issue. It believes that in the end, when draftin
g a new constitution, from past observations, there has never been an exception to amendments in any of the chapters. Instead, there has been a clear framework that there will be no amendments that lead to changes in the form of government and state, which I think is already tight enough. In the past, it has been seen that every time a new constitution has been drafted, the text in Chapters 1 and 2 has always been revised and has not led to any changes in the form of government or state. This includes the determination of questions for organizing the referendum, which the Prachachon Party places importance on. The questions should be open-ended and not include the conditions prohibiting touching on the content in Chapters 1 and 2, which are two-tiered questions, in drafting a new constitution because the public may agree with some of the questions and this may reduce the chances of the referendum passing due to such conditions. Therefore, the government is requested to review the referendum questions. Because
the government has the right as the majority in the parliament to eliminate the power of the Constituent Assembly to amend the constitution without touching Chapters 1 and 2.
Mr. Parit also admitted that he was still concerned about the drafting of a new constitution and could not confirm whether the drafting of a new constitution would be completed in this government or not because it would require time and the government’s roadmap for holding three referendums. If the government does not plan carefully, there may not be a new constitution in time for the upcoming election.
Mr. Prisht stated that in this amendment of the constitution, no signal has been received from the Senate and further discussions will be needed.
Mr. Prisht, as the chairman of the Committee on Political Development and Public Participation, also revealed that the committee has prepared to propose a draft amendment to the Organic Act on the Constitution, which is related to the Constitutional Court’s power to dissolve parties and to ma
ke the establishment of political parties easier, to raise funds easier, and to review the conditions for dissolving parties.
Source: Thai News Agency