Constitution Changes.....

[marshbags]

Bangkok POst, General news, Wednesday December 10, 2008

EDITORIAL

Give charter rewrite time

Seventy-six years ago today, Thailand's first permanent constitution was promulgated. The first charter, which took effect after the 1932 Revolution that replaced absolute monarchy with a constitutional one, had members of both the legislative and executive branches initially appointed, until after 10 years - or half of the population had completed primary education.

From then on, the country has had 17 constitutions. Each charter thus has had an average lifespan of less than five years. Regrettably, the frequency of the supreme law's abrogation and replacement is a mirror of the state of politics and democracy struggling to gain a firm foothold in an environment where military intervention has occurred as frequently and remains a viable possibility - at least in the eyes of some groups of people - even today.

During the past 76 years, the country's charters swung back and forth in terms of their democratic content. It can be safely argued, however, that as far as the promotion of democracy, the building of democratic apparatuses, values and spirit are concerned, we have come very far from where we started.

The current 2007 Constitution has been in effect for about one and a half years since it won a favourable vote by a narrow margin of 58% to 42% in a national referendum in August last year. There is no denying that the charter took a leaf from its precursor, the highly popular 1997 People's Charter, and made it even better in terms of human rights protection, especially for children, youth, women, the elderly and disabled. It also made it easier for the general public to censure the government.

However, during the short period of its use in which one general election was held while two governments were formed and dismissed by its rules, it has been almost unanimously agreed that this charter is less than perfect in both idealistic presumption and practical detail. Politicians have protested that they cannot function properly under the charter's rigid rules concerning election procedures, qualifications of members of parliament and scope of authority of the executive branch. Civil society groups have decried its stipulation that half the Senate be selected. Many independent-minded individuals simply cannot get over the fact that this charter comes from an assembly of charter writers hand-picked by the architects of the 2006 military coup.

Unquote

Ref url for the rest of the editorial, please go to:-

http://www.bangkokpost.com/101208_News/10Dec2008_news12.php

Perhaps those in opposition will note the first part i,ve highlighted in bold, relating to it being accepted via a national referendum and not by an order handed down by the military ?????

marshbags

Sincere apologies if this is posted elsewhere and i,ve missed it.

[Koo82]

My husband and I did not vote for it. Back then the panthaman PAD and other "good" people were on tv asking us to accept first and they would adjust later, knowing it was not perfect. We didn't accept. But somehow it was approved.

Their main idea when writing this is to cut Khun Thaksin.

When Khun Samak & Khun Somchai wanted to adjust, PAD threatened to protest again.