Constitution Court Acted Outside Its Powers, Says Nitirat

[binjalin]

The only person that makes any sense and has any understanding of this current debacle is Yunla

The rest of you wannabies clearly have no clue what you're on about and would be better wasting your time elseware like go educate yourselves and bring something tangable to the table- seriously

In your humble opinion of course.................

I liked 'go educate yourselves' and 'tangAble' we obviously have a 'wordsmith' amongst us - and as for 'elsewAre'

When the day comes that you can lose in a discussion by making spelling mistakes, the losing side would be very large, some would call it an overwhelming majority.

especially when the post was about EDUCATION that was the irony - I was being sarcastic

[binjalin]

absolutely 'the government didn't receive the majority of votes' is laughable followed by 'who voted for red shirts? nobody' it's embarrassing

Only to those without the vision to see and the the intelligence to comprehend.

Look - I don't know you and I defend your right to argue your case but It appears we are on opposite sides of the spectrum as I see the changes happening are for the longer term positive good and against the 'amart' and you argue for the defense of them and against all change.

That is your right. But.. you can't argue with 'who voted for the reds - nobody' or the 'government did not get a majority' because is blatantly not true and looks silly. Argue WHY things should not change, WHY the peasants should be kept in their places etc. not 'nobody voted for them' because, as has been shown zillions of times, Thai people VOTED for them at the last election. Thank you.

It seems you confuse his desire for

'No sudden change into greater unbridled corruption',

to his well know desire for

'Gradually accelerated and modulated change for all Thais',

Not simply swapping one amart for another amart run by a greed ridden sociopath.

Sudden grand changes pushed by megalomaniacs historically had created MUCH greater hardships for the poor afterwards, than those that slowly morphed into better lives for all.

I don't think many really want Thaksin back - it's not all about Thaksin (as I pointed out in an earlier post)

[binjalin]

The only person that makes any sense and has any understanding of this current debacle is Yunla

The rest of you wannabies clearly have no clue what you're on about and would be better wasting your time elseware like go educate yourselves and bring something tangable to the table- seriously

In your humble opinion of course.................

I liked 'go educate yourselves' and 'tangAble' we obviously have a 'wordsmith' amongst us - and as for 'elsewAre'

When the day comes that you can lose in a discussion by making spelling mistakes, the losing side would be very large, some would call it an overwhelming majority.

haha quiet amusing for you I like it

[Yunla]

agreed but you're wrong (and by the way you can't own property here - unless it's a condo of course). I defend your right 'as a citizen of this planet' (bit pompous though) what a shame others cannot exercise that right here in Thailand due to the amart's censorship laws

Yes, I own an old apartment built over half a century ago, which is falling apart and probably worth less today than my shoes are.

Have changed 'citizen of this planet' to 'global awareness' just for you. Either way it wasn't pompous at all, quite the opposite. It is healthy to understand that UDHR applies to all humans in all countries by inference, and even though not all countries have their own internal safeguards for those human rights, it is still entirely the duty of people globally to comment on human rights abuses or other societal failures regardless of the nation it occurs in.

Edited July 16, 2012 by Yunla

[binjalin]

agreed but you're wrong (and by the way you can't own property here - unless it's a condo of course). I defend your right 'as a citizen of this planet' (bit pompous though) what a shame others cannot exercise that right here in Thailand due to the amart's censorship laws

Yes, I own an old apartment built over half a century ago, which is falling apart and probably worth less today than my shoes are.

Have changed 'citizen of this planet' to 'global awareness' just for you. Either way it wasn't pompous at all, quite the opposite. It is healthy to understand that UDHR applies to all humans in all countries by inference, and even though not all countries have their own internal safeguards for those human rights, it is still entirely the duty of people globally to comment on human rights abuses or other societal failures regardless of the nation it occurs in.

\\

don't disagree

[Moruya]

come on... a post about people having to 'educate themselves' (which is the ONLY reason I picked up on it) then write like a ten year old? gimme a break

anyway I hate all this 'personalization' when debating and, before you say it, this dude started it with his 'go educate yourselves' attack on some fairly good posts (from both sides).

I took Smedly's post as being massively tongue in cheek.

[Moruya]

haha quiet amusing for you I like it

indeed, quiet amusing!

[SuneeTH]

Constitution did not allow the court to suspend or delay the charter amendment?

What is he talking about?

The court have all rights to do anything they want. They represent all 64 million Thai people.

[smedly]

ssssssh enough of this off topic jibber jabber - be quite already

[binjalin]

haha quiet amusing for you I like it

indeed, quiet amusing!

haha oh you got the joke? wow impressive

[binjalin]

ssssssh enough of this off topic jibber jabber - be quite already

and sadly being an 'educated poster' you didn't get it *sigh*

[binjalin]

come on... a post about people having to 'educate themselves' (which is the ONLY reason I picked up on it) then write like a ten year old? gimme a break

anyway I hate all this 'personalization' when debating and, before you say it, this dude started it with his 'go educate yourselves' attack on some fairly good posts (from both sides).

I took Smedly's post as being massively tongue in cheek.

good try but... no

[binjalin]

Constitution did not allow the court to suspend or delay the charter amendment?

What is he talking about?

The court have all rights to do anything they want. They represent all 64 million Thai people.

no dude - the Thai government 'represent' the people - they are elected

[Thaddeus]

Constitution did not allow the court to suspend or delay the charter amendment?

What is he talking about?

The court have all rights to do anything they want. They represent all 64 million Thai people.

no dude - the Thai government 'represent' the people - they are elected

Well, as I have said before, isn't it about time they started working to help all the Thai people.

The CC ruling was a gentle reminder for PTP to start thinking about the whole country, not one man.

[tlansford]

- deleted -

Are you saying that the government, who received the majority of the votes, should decide????

Firstly, the government didn't receive the majority of the votes.

Secondly the country has far too many groups of people voicing opinions just to upset the apple cart. This bunch are Republicans

But first, the government some how still has 300 of 500 seats in Parliament... Amazing, I guess maybe the government did get a majority of votes. Think about that, please.

And, second, so you call them republicans ? whatever. Names hardly matter. This court just jumped with both feet into a parliamentary debate and the first part of their decision was to defend why they did that and to restate that they had every right to do so... but it is only the word of this court which claims that. They have given themselves an unprecedented power to stop parliament. 9 justice, never elected and not democratically selected have given themselves the power to stop parliament.

That's democracy ?

We can discuss the realities of corruption, etc, etc, but the structure of the government has to be somewhat correct. The courts just knocked down part of the wall separating the branches of government and the "fans of real democracy" on TVF don't even grasp the problem with that.

Miracle TVF.

Do you think the the Judiciary should be independent of the government or be under its control?

Personally I think the 2 bodies should be completely independent.

Well, for the functioning, they were independent until this week. As for selection of the judiciary, the pre-coup constitution had 15 CC justices, 8 selected by the Senate (100% elected Senate) and 7 from selected from the judiciary. That is in contrast to the current selection process as posted by phiphidon which is not only not a democratic process, but one that has built 'in-breeding' into the political selection process for the judiciary and the appointed Senate.

What the court has done this week is to increase its control over the parliament. I believe that the different branches should stick to their knitting which is what the separation of powers is about in my home country.

I read that in the court's own ruling they justified jumping in now partly on the logic that after the 3rd reading, it would have been too late. This is a statement that I cannot imagine any court in the USA making because it doesn't make sense. The CC has under its domain to rule on the constitutionality of legislation and royal decrees. By definition the legislation exists when they get their turn to rule on it. It therefore seems impossible that a 3rd reading would somehow make it too late for the court to pass judgment.

Which is exactly the point demonstrating how it was the court's own desire to jump into this debate... that is in addition to their re-interpretation of the correct grammatical use of the word 'and'.

So, yes, the branches should be independent, and yes, the court justices appointment process should be at least nominally related to a democratic process.

[animatic]

quote name='binjalin' timestamp='1342403918' post='5488584'

absolutely 'the government didn't receive the majority of votes' is laughable followed by 'who voted for red shirts? nobody' it's embarrassing

Only to those without the vision to see and the the intelligence to comprehend.

Look - I don't know you and I defend your right to argue your case but It appears we are on opposite sides of the spectrum as I see the changes happening are for the longer term positive good and against the 'amart' and you argue for the defense of them and against all change.

That is your right. But.. you can't argue with 'who voted for the reds - nobody' or the 'government did not get a majority' because is blatantly not true and looks silly. Argue WHY things should not change, WHY the peasants should be kept in their places etc. not 'nobody voted for them' because, as has been shown zillions of times, Thai people VOTED for them at the last election. Thank you.

It seems you confuse his desire for

'No sudden change into greater unbridled corruption',

to his well know desire for

'Gradually accelerated and modulated change for all Thais',

Not simply swapping one amart for another amart run by a greed ridden sociopath.

Sudden grand changes pushed by megalomaniacs historically had created MUCH greater hardships for the poor afterwards, than those that slowly morphed into better lives for all.

I don't think many really want Thaksin back - it's not all about Thaksin (as I pointed out in an earlier post)

Believe that canard at your own risk.

Besides the obvious that he isn't the only potential Megalomaniac in his cotiere.

Edited July 16, 2012 by animatic

[tlansford]

Having boiled all of your paragraph to basically the one point 'the court has come about undemocratically" that you disagree with, I'll think you'll find that the Judges of the CC have not been elected in a democratic process.

Under the Junta Constitution the CC constitutes 9 Judges (15 previously)

Three justices are elected by a general assembly of Supreme Court judges by secret ballot from their own ranks

Two justices are elected by a general assembly of Administrative Court judges by secret ballot from their own ranks.

Four justices are nominated by a selection committee and all 9 are confirmed by the Senate

Under the Junta Constitution the Judges pick the Senate (half of them) and the Senate picks the Judges (see above). A slight conflict of interests?

As you can see at the time there were some sane judges about who could see the problems of getting involved with the political side of things

But, the Nitirat group, which is what this thread was about, have said their solution is to wipe out the existing court and make a new one with 8 judges, 6 of whom would come from PTP or any future government (3 by Parliament and 3 by the cabinet) The other two would be selected by the Senate which would probably select judges who were on the oppositions side. Since is seems that all votes in Parliament are decided by simple majority then this would be the only possibe outcome of their plan.

For some things I think the sitting government certainly has the right to select the people they want to implement their programs but for an organization whose main purpose is to be an independent body to provide impartial judgements as part of a system checks and balances, the Nitirat plan is very undemocratic. Part of any democrtic government has to be checks and balances to prevent a government gone wild.

The problem, of course,is where in this polarized society would you ever find impartial judges.

where do you find impartial judges anywhere in the world... ?

[carra]

Well, for the functioning, they were independent until this week. As for selection of the judiciary, the pre-coup constitution had 15 CC justices, 8 selected by the Senate (100% elected Senate) and 7 from selected from the judiciary. That is in contrast to the current selection process as posted by phiphidon which is not only not a democratic process, but one that has built 'in-breeding' into the political selection process for the judiciary and the appointed Senate.

What the court has done this week is to increase its control over the parliament. I believe that the different branches should stick to their knitting which is what the separation of powers is about in my home country.

I read that in the court's own ruling they justified jumping in now partly on the logic that after the 3rd reading, it would have been too late. This is a statement that I cannot imagine any court in the USA making because it doesn't make sense. The CC has under its domain to rule on the constitutionality of legislation and royal decrees. By definition the legislation exists when they get their turn to rule on it. It therefore seems impossible that a 3rd reading would somehow make it too late for the court to pass judgment.

Which is exactly the point demonstrating how it was the court's own desire to jump into this debate... that is in addition to their re-interpretation of the correct grammatical use of the word 'and'.

So, yes, the branches should be independent, and yes, the court justices appointment process should be at least nominally related to a democratic process.

Stop talking sense, some posters just can't handle it

[carra]

Having boiled all of your paragraph to basically the one point 'the court has come about undemocratically" that you disagree with, I'll think you'll find that the Judges of the CC have not been elected in a democratic process.

Under the Junta Constitution the CC constitutes 9 Judges (15 previously)

Three justices are elected by a general assembly of Supreme Court judges by secret ballot from their own ranks

Two justices are elected by a general assembly of Administrative Court judges by secret ballot from their own ranks.

Four justices are nominated by a selection committee and all 9 are confirmed by the Senate

Under the Junta Constitution the Judges pick the Senate (half of them) and the Senate picks the Judges (see above). A slight conflict of interests?

As you can see at the time there were some sane judges about who could see the problems of getting involved with the political side of things

But, the Nitirat group, which is what this thread was about, have said their solution is to wipe out the existing court and make a new one with 8 judges, 6 of whom would come from PTP or any future government (3 by Parliament and 3 by the cabinet) The other two would be selected by the Senate which would probably select judges who were on the oppositions side. Since is seems that all votes in Parliament are decided by simple majority then this would be the only possibe outcome of their plan.

For some things I think the sitting government certainly has the right to select the people they want to implement their programs but for an organization whose main purpose is to be an independent body to provide impartial judgements as part of a system checks and balances, the Nitirat plan is very undemocratic. Part of any democrtic government has to be checks and balances to prevent a government gone wild.

The problem, of course,is where in this polarized society would you ever find impartial judges.

where do you find impartial judges anywhere in the world... ?

Most places though they like to be seen to be impartial, here they don't even afford us that luxury

[tlansford]

Having boiled all of your paragraph to basically the one point 'the court has come about undemocratically" that you disagree with, I'll think you'll find that the Judges of the CC have not been elected in a democratic process.

Under the Junta Constitution the CC constitutes 9 Judges (15 previously)

Three justices are elected by a general assembly of Supreme Court judges by secret ballot from their own ranks

Two justices are elected by a general assembly of Administrative Court judges by secret ballot from their own ranks.

Four justices are nominated by a selection committee and all 9 are confirmed by the Senate

Under the Junta Constitution the Judges pick the Senate (half of them) and the Senate picks the Judges (see above). A slight conflict of interests?

As you can see at the time there were some sane judges about who could see the problems of getting involved with the political side of things

But, the Nitirat group, which is what this thread was about, have said their solution is to wipe out the existing court and make a new one with 8 judges, 6 of whom would come from PTP or any future government (3 by Parliament and 3 by the cabinet) The other two would be selected by the Senate which would probably select judges who were on the oppositions side. Since is seems that all votes in Parliament are decided by simple majority then this would be the only possibe outcome of their plan.

For some things I think the sitting government certainly has the right to select the people they want to implement their programs but for an organization whose main purpose is to be an independent body to provide impartial judgements as part of a system checks and balances, the Nitirat plan is very undemocratic. Part of any democrtic government has to be checks and balances to prevent a government gone wild.

The problem, of course,is where in this polarized society would you ever find impartial judges.

where do you find impartial judges anywhere in the world... ?

Most places though they like to be seen to be impartial, here they don't even afford us that luxury

I disagree. In the USA the supreme court has historically been anything but impartial. The biases of the justices are very well understood. There are several reasons why Americans live with this. One is that the justices are appointed for life so the balance of the court often changes slowly over time. Another is that the justices are nominated by the President and approved by congress, so there is a 100% democratic selection process. Finally, when the court does strike down a law as unconstitutional, then the congress has the option to re-write the law, or in some cases, propose a constitutional amendment.

Which points out one of the less obvious but very important reasons the parties fight so hard to take the presidency. The president picks the ideology of the supreme court justice nominee.

So in the USA, everyone knows the Supreme Court has its own bias, people understand what it is, and they live with it because there is a well-established democratic process surrounding the make-up of the court and reaction to its rulings.

Now the obvious issue is that the democratic process for selecting justices in Thailand is just plain missing.

[Lite Beer]

Red shirts burn mock coffin of Constitution Court judges

BANGKOK: -- Some 90 red-shirt people from Pathum Thani filed a compliant with police against nine Constitution Court judges and burned a mock coffin to protest in front of the court Monday.

The protesters were led by Wutthipong Kachathamkhun, a DJ of a red-shirt community radio station in Pathum Thani.

They gathered in front of the Constitution Court at the Government Complex at 11:30 am.

They carried banners condemning the judges and displaying a mock coffin with the names of the nine judges around it.

They also distributed copies of their complaint filed with the Kukot police station in Phathum Thani against the nine judges.

Wutthipong said his group alleged that the nine judges had committed sedition and falsifying documents to pretend to have authorities to make a ruling on constitution amendments.

The court has ruled that charter amendments could be done on article-by-article basis and an entirely new charter could not be drafted unless a public referendum was held first.

The group burned the mock coffin at noon and moved to the Government House to hand over a copy of compliant against the judges to Deputy Prime Minster Chalem Yoobamrung.

-- The Nation 2012-07-16

[carra]

Most places though they like to be seen to be impartial, here they don't even afford us that luxury

I disagree. In the USA the supreme court has historically been anything but impartial. The biases of the justices are very well understood. There are several reasons why Americans live with this. One is that the justices are appointed for life so the balance of the court often changes slowly over time. Another is that the justices are nominated by the President and approved by congress, so there is a 100% democratic selection process. Finally, when the court does strike down a law as unconstitutional, then the congress has the option to re-write the law, or in some cases, propose a constitutional amendment.

Which points out one of the less obvious but very important reasons the parties fight so hard to take the presidency. The president picks the ideology of the supreme court justice nominee.

So in the USA, everyone knows the Supreme Court has its own bias, people understand what it is, and they live with it because there is a well-established democratic process surrounding the make-up of the court and reaction to its rulings.

Now the obvious issue is that the democratic process for selecting justices in Thailand is just plain missing.

sorry my post is not clear, I agreed with you that they are not impartial, but then i said they like to give the impression they are impartial elsewhere

[tlansford]

Most places though they like to be seen to be impartial, here they don't even afford us that luxury

I disagree. In the USA the supreme court has historically been anything but impartial. The biases of the justices are very well understood. There are several reasons why Americans live with this. One is that the justices are appointed for life so the balance of the court often changes slowly over time. Another is that the justices are nominated by the President and approved by congress, so there is a 100% democratic selection process. Finally, when the court does strike down a law as unconstitutional, then the congress has the option to re-write the law, or in some cases, propose a constitutional amendment.

Which points out one of the less obvious but very important reasons the parties fight so hard to take the presidency. The president picks the ideology of the supreme court justice nominee.

So in the USA, everyone knows the Supreme Court has its own bias, people understand what it is, and they live with it because there is a well-established democratic process surrounding the make-up of the court and reaction to its rulings.

Now the obvious issue is that the democratic process for selecting justices in Thailand is just plain missing.

sorry my post is not clear, I agreed with you that they are not impartial, but then i said they like to give the impression they are impartial elsewhere

no problem. I understand what you mean. I think that in countries like the USA there is a well-understood and democratic process around the courts. This in no way means that people like all their decisions or that the courts do not get used for one side or the other's political gain - they do in the US, too.

On TVF people like to think that the court is unbiased, but that doesn't reflect the reality ... here or anywhere else.

[Moruya]

Red shirts burn mock coffin of Constitution Court judges

BANGKOK: -- Some 90 red-shirt people from Pathum Thani filed a compliant with police against nine Constitution Court judges and burned a mock coffin to protest in front of the court Monday.

The protesters were led by Wutthipong Kachathamkhun, a DJ of a red-shirt community radio station in Pathum Thani.

They gathered in front of the Constitution Court at the Government Complex at 11:30 am.

They carried banners condemning the judges and displaying a mock coffin with the names of the nine judges around it.

They also distributed copies of their complaint filed with the Kukot police station in Phathum Thani against the nine judges.

Wutthipong said his group alleged that the nine judges had committed sedition and falsifying documents to pretend to have authorities to make a ruling on constitution amendments.

The court has ruled that charter amendments could be done on article-by-article basis and an entirely new charter could not be drafted unless a public referendum was held first.

The group burned the mock coffin at noon and moved to the Government House to hand over a copy of compliant against the judges to Deputy Prime Minster Chalem Yoobamrung.

-- The Nation 2012-07-16

What a nice bunch of fascists

[lungmi]

Voodoo addicted zombies.

[rubl]

For every group declaring the CC to be unconstitutional, another group can be found to say the opposite.

IMHO that simply means it's difficult to have a CC elected democratically as most people have no idea of what the law is or is supposed to mean even if it slapped them in the face. This means the CC needs to be appointed out of a group of independent lawyers / judges who have shown an independent, clear of influence attitude while keeping an eye on evolutionary improvements. Remaining question is who to allow to do the election. Obviously most if not all TV posters have disqualified themselves already, if only by not being Thai

[FOODLOVER]

Constitution did not allow the court to suspend or delay the charter amendment?

What is he talking about?

The court have all rights to do anything they want. They represent all 64 million Thai people.

no dude - the Thai government 'represent' the people - they are elected

Dude, the Reds bogarted the election. They scored it through payments and manipulation of the peeps. Tres uncool and now look at the gnarley results.

[Reasonableman]

For every group declaring the CC to be unconstitutional, another group can be found to say the opposite.

IMHO that simply means it's difficult to have a CC elected democratically as most people have no idea of what the law is or is supposed to mean even if it slapped them in the face. This means the CC needs to be appointed out of a group of independent lawyers / judges who have shown an independent, clear of influence attitude while keeping an eye on evolutionary improvements. Remaining question is who to allow to do the election. Obviously most if not all TV posters have disqualified themselves already, if only by not being Thai

Farang TVers (both resident and non-resident) not eligible... Thank God for that!

Edited July 16, 2012 by Reasonableman

[binjalin]

Red shirts burn mock coffin of Constitution Court judges

BANGKOK: -- Some 90 red-shirt people from Pathum Thani filed a compliant with police against nine Constitution Court judges and burned a mock coffin to protest in front of the court Monday.

The protesters were led by Wutthipong Kachathamkhun, a DJ of a red-shirt community radio station in Pathum Thani.

They gathered in front of the Constitution Court at the Government Complex at 11:30 am.

They carried banners condemning the judges and displaying a mock coffin with the names of the nine judges around it.

They also distributed copies of their complaint filed with the Kukot police station in Phathum Thani against the nine judges.

Wutthipong said his group alleged that the nine judges had committed sedition and falsifying documents to pretend to have authorities to make a ruling on constitution amendments.

The court has ruled that charter amendments could be done on article-by-article basis and an entirely new charter could not be drafted unless a public referendum was held first.

The group burned the mock coffin at noon and moved to the Government House to hand over a copy of compliant against the judges to Deputy Prime Minster Chalem Yoobamrung.

-- The Nation 2012-07-16

What a nice bunch of fascists

don't think they are facist just uneducated and silly - both sides have fools so let's not start jumping up and down too much! fools on either side do not negate the fundamental arguments (and disagreements)

[whybother]

On the one side we have the yellows and the 'amart' who are struggling to keep Thailand way back in the feudal past and THIS is causing a reaction on the 'other' side where Thai people feel they have no choice (because there is NO choice) to follow Thaksin and his cronies to fight this reactionary stance. If there was an alternative I'm very sure the vast majority would take it and this is why I, and others, say this is not 'all about Thaksin' it is about CHANGE and, unfortunately, and I have to admit this, there are those who are exploiting that feeling on both sides.

I think you will find that the PTP and red shirts are very interested in keeping the north and north east in the feudal past, because that makes the people easier to control.