Normally, we believe that judiciary system, as one of the three sovereign branches: legislative, executive and judiciary, is well respected and expected to be fair for all. However, according to nowadays situation, can we always trust our courts' myth or should we try to examine it in some particular case?According to BBC News' article, "Thai court rules general election invalid", Thailand's constitutional court has judged, with the majority score of 6-3, that the 2 February general election led by the caretaker government is invalid, with the reason that vote casting ceremony, which was 90% succeed across the country, was not take place on the same day. The official date for the new election is not yet determined and it seems that the government protester, according to protest leader Suthep Thaugsuban, intend to obstruct the new election again which will lead to deadlock situation.
Recently, Thais are not only facing with legitimacy decline in legislative and executive power but also judiciary power, especially the constitutional court. We may understand that the first two are illegitimate because our parliament had passed a questionable law that most people in the Thai society cannot accept: an extreme amnesty bill and the government is charged with corruption issues. But why do we think that our constitutional court is not legitimate? Well, to make it clearer, it can be argued that although the constitutional court has its own power to judge constitutional disputes, but what is a constitutional dispute? Is this word too broad? Although the constitution is well understood by Thais that is the supreme legal over others, but should the constitutional court have its own power to get involve in all issues? For example, should the constitutional court get involve in the two-trillion-baht mega project, which is a government's decision instead? For that particular case, why there is no alternative way to audit such policy in each steps by independent audit organization such as the National Anti-Corruption Commission (NACC) rather than get rid of all good benefits from that policy by the court? Also, the policy is not yet implemented, why the court knew that this would be bad for Thais? When the court, with only 9 judges, has power to intervene the executive power?
Back to our recent incident, which constitution's article(s) the court brought to support its judgement? The constitution court, according to Sanook News, cited the second paragraph of an article 108, which states that "The dissolution of the House of Representatives shall be made in the form of a Royal Decree in which the day for a new general election must be fixed for not less than forty-five days but not more than sixty days as from the day the House of Representatives has been dissolved and such election day must be the same
throughout the Kingdom." (p.35), which, according to our Thai version of constitution, an election day must be determined in the same day in the royal decree only (p.38). Although the government has already decided an election day, however, the protesters' obstruction which is an accidental incident, is not included in the law. According to the court's judgement, so it sounds weird that an election should be held again if there is an election district that can't operate for people to cast their votes with any accidental incidents in the next ten years or more. Some might said that we should have a political reformation before an election, but this issue is about the legal process for running the parliament, the government and the judiciary system rather than political development projects or social development plans. Such a reformation, in my opinion, is still unclear in a practical term and should be discussed in the political system in order to solve nowadays political turmoil instead.
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Reference
Constitution of the Kingdom of Thailand (A.D.2007) (English Version). Royal Thai Parliament. Retrieved March 24, 2014 from http://library2.parliament.go.th/giventake/content_cons50/cons2550e-kd.pdf.
Constitution of the Kingdom of Thailand (B.E. 2550) (Thai Version). Royal Thai Ombudsman. Retrieved March 24, 2014 from http://www.ombudsman.go.th/10/documents/law/Constitution2550.pdf.
That's a heavy topic to wake up to with my morning coffee.
ReplyDeleteBut one thing I like in Book's post is his insistence that there needs to be more discussion on all of the issues relevant to the ongoing political conflicts in Thailand. And that discussion needs to be free and open, contrary to the weak protection in the current Thai constitution, which the courts interpret not as protection of free speech for residents of Thailand, but as an excuse for suppression.
Free speech, being able to peacefully say what you honestly believe on a topic, is not only a basic human right, but is a necessary condition for knowledge and an informed opinion on the topic. This is why some things are censored: censorship is always done to enforce ignorance on a topic so that all lawful opinion on the censored topic must be ignorant, ill-informed and therefore largely worthless.
Surely informed opinion of some worth is preferable the guaranteed worthlessness that comes from censorship, from not allowing people to seek and say what is believed to be true on any topic?
As I was just writing my post on grammar, the examples of Shakespeare's language (dangling participles and the like) and content (murder, regicide, bloody fights, suicide, wars, and other violence, political machination, betrayal, sex, sex and more sex) led me to a thought that might be more relevant here.
ReplyDeleteShould Shakespeare have corrected his grammar mistakes?
More relevantly, should innocent children be exposed to such things, or should such writing be censored to protect the quality of English and "good morals," as the Thai constitution plainly thinks is a good idea? (Foreign Law Bureau, 2007, Sections: 28, 36, 37, 43, 45, 50, and 64).
Such talk in a constitution seems to me a serious threat both to democratic principle and to moral good.
Reference
Foreign Law Bureau (trans.). (2007). Constitution of the Kingdom of Thailand, B.E. 2550 (2007) [Translation]. Bangkok: Office of the Council of State. Retrieved from http://library2.parliament.go.th/giventake/content_cons50/cons2550e-kd.pdf
(Original Thai text at http://www.ombudsman.go.th/10/documents/law/Constitution2550.pdf)