recommends that the government ‘withdraw’ the study report on the enactment of the Amnesty Act from the agenda of the parliament meeting on 3 Oct. because the proposal for amnesty under Section 112 is ‘inappropriate’ and, more importantly, the coalition parties are divided.
Mr. Chavalit Wichayasut, deputy leader and strategy member of the Thai Sang Thai Party (TST), mentioned the House of Representatives meeting on October 3, 2024, which the agenda item 4.1 is about the study report on the amnesty bill. The report contains issues that the committee members have different opinions on whether to grant amnesty for crimes under Article 112 or whether there are conditions for amnesty. Some coalition parties disagreed with the amnesty for crimes under Article 112, while the committee members from the core party of the government, the Pheu Thai Party, believed that there should be amnesty for crimes under Article 112. Most recently, on September 26, Mr. Akaradej Wongpitakroj, MP for Ratchaburi and spokesman for th
e Ruam Thai Sang Chart Party, announced that the party’s resolution did not agree with the amnesty for crimes under Article 112 in any case.
‘I am surprised that the study of the committee did not use a unanimous vote in the committee or at least use a majority vote in the committee and then propose the issues that the committee, by a unanimous vote or a majority vote, proposed as observations for the House of Representatives to consider. Proposing open-ended observations for the House of Representatives to consider will be extremely difficult to find a conclusion. Otherwise, why would the House have a resolution to set up a committee to study and prepare a report? Especially the case of an offense under Section 112 is a non-compoundable offense because it is an act of violation against the King, who is the head of the nation and one of the main institutions of the nation,’ said Mr. Chavalit.
Mr. Chavalit said that he would like to make an honest suggestion to the government that Section 6 of the Constituti
on clearly states that ‘The King is in a revered position and cannot be violated. No one can accuse or sue the King in any way.’ Therefore, the government should protect the institution to operate in accordance with the constitution, which all foreign countries have laws to protect the head of state or national leader. Withdrawing the study report and re-doing it to reach a conclusion at the committee level and then presenting it to the House of Representatives should be a way to make the consideration in the House of Representatives proceed smoothly.
However, the crime under Section 112 does not mean that there is no way out to solve the problem. The Thai Sang Thai Party has proposed a solution to this problem. In summary, if the offender or the accused person repents of their actions, they can request a royal pardon or ask for a royal pardon, depending on the case, whether there is a final judgment or not. If there is no final judgment, the parliament should propose amending the relevant law to allow the K
ing to have the power to grant a royal pardon because the crime under Section 112 is an offense that cannot be compounded.
Mr. Chavalit said that in addition, there was a case where the Thai Sang Thai Party had proposed a solution to prevent harassment and accusations in cases of offenses under Section 112, which is to amend the Criminal Procedure Code in the part about complaints and accusations by having a committee to screen complaints, which may consist of police, prosecutors, administrators, and academics, which will create confidence for the accused that they will not be harassed in the prosecution.
Mr. Chavalit said that even though the Thai Sang Thai Party does not have a committee in the said committee, as a member of a political party in a democratic regime with the King as Head of State, he would like to express his honest opinion calling on the government to protect Article 6 of the Constitution, which states that the King is above politics.
In addition, it is recommended that the government su
bmit a study report by the House of Representatives Committee on Law, Justice and Human Rights, which studied the approach to creating national reconciliation, which proposed an amnesty for political cases, criminal cases with political motives, no amnesty for corruption cases, and no amnesty for cases of offenses under Section 112, except for cases of corruption where the trial process does not follow the rule of law, which the House of Representatives considered and approved without any objection on August 19, 2020.
Mr. Chavalit said that from the resolution of the House of Representatives on August 19, 2020, all political parties at that time were still in this parliament. The constitution was still the original constitution that stipulated that the King was in a revered position and could not be violated by anyone. Therefore, the resolution of the House of Representatives on August 19, 2020 was equivalent to a resolution that ‘shut up’ political parties that had voted on the issue of offenses under Secti
on 112 by default. There was only a search for a way out to solve the problem of cases of offenses under Section 112, which could be found if the perpetrators were aware of their actions and sought a way out as suggested above
Source: Thai News Agency