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Suranand: PM may seek royal nod for charter-amendment bill tomorrow
The Nation

BANGKOK: -- PM'S SECRETARY-GENERAL Suranand Vejjajiva said yesterday that the premier should be able to forward the charter-amendment bill for royal endorsement tomorrow.

The Cabinet secretariat was proofing the bill in detail, he said.

Senate Speaker Nikom Wairatpanij said he had passed on to his secretariat the petitions from the Democrats and some senators against the charter amendment and instructed staff to finish verifying the petitions and summit them to the Constitutional Court quickly.

"I have told [them] to hurry up so nobody can attack me as standing in their way," he said.

The parliamentarians cited Article 154 to oppose the legislation after it was passed by Parliament, but before the prime minister submits it for royal endorsement.

The House-Senate meeting on Saturday approved the charter-amendment bill, which will change the Senate to an all-elected chamber and remove appointed senators. The prime minister must submit the law for royal endorsement within 20 days, according to the law.

The Constitutional Court last week accepted for review the petitions against the charter amendment submitted by the Democrats and some senators but refused to issue an injunction against the third reading.

Democrat Party leader Abhisit Vejjajiva has kept asking the government to delay the submission for royal endorsement. He said yesterday that the government should wait for the court's ruling and should not be afraid of the 20-day deadline, as the court might issue any order before the deadline.

But the damage would be even greater if the decree goes on with the process and the court later rules it unconstitutional, Abhisit said.

Pheu Thai legal expert Chusak Sirinil said the party's strategists would next week discuss how to defend the charter amendment. It would insist that the Constitutional Court has no mandate to accept and consider the complaints. Pheu Thai Party spokesman Prompong Nopparit said the party's meeting tomorrow would summon party-list MP Mingkwan Sangsuwan and Uttaradit MP Kanok Limtragool to clarify why they were absent from the joint meeting on Saturday for the third reading.

"[Attending] parliamentary meetings is a duty. All [MPs] must come. It's their right how they vote, but when they skip a meeting they need to explain to the party's key members and executives what the reasons were," he said.

They would be disciplined if they lacked sound reasons.

"The party is the ruling party. We have to come and make a quorum.

"We don't force [them] about voting, it's their choice. If they were sick, a dozen MPs were also sick and they came [to the meeting]. If they were admitted to the ICU, they had to come with their saline tubes," he said.

Prompong also said he believed the Democrats' video showing Pheu Thai MPs allegedly using their absent colleagues' identification cards to register their attendance during a charter amendment meeting was doctored.

The Democrats should have first submitted the footage to the House committee to investigate, he said.


-- The Nation 2013-09-30

[cloudhopper]

What if there is no royal endorsement - has that ever happened?

[richard10365]

The House-Senate meeting on Saturday approved the charter-amendment bill, which will change the Senate to an all-elected chamber and remove appointed senators.

This is amazing! A step in the right direction in my opinion. People who make laws should represent the people. Congratulations Thailand! (if it gets approved)

[MaxLee]

What if there is no royal endorsement - has that ever happened?

Not that I remember, because by the end of the day, when things come down to a final decision, somebody in power is either too sick, too busy, too greedy or too mentally unavailable, to get things done, Mai pen rai...

Smiley smiley thank you. See you again next year...

[Thai at Heart]

What if there is no royal endorsement - has that ever happened?

That would be a constitutional conundrum. Presumably they constitutional court should know what to do.....

[Valentine]

The House-Senate meeting on Saturday approved the charter-amendment bill, which will change the Senate to an all-elected chamber and remove appointed senators.

This is amazing! A step in the right direction in my opinion. People who make laws should represent the people. Congratulations Thailand! (if it gets approved)

Yes it would be another step to help get wives, relatives & cronies of those in power to be elected & thus reduce the independence of the senate.

[bigbamboo]

As long as the people vote for a local senator (two from each province would be ideal) and family members of MPs are not allowed to serve in the upper house then it seems like a good way to go. What mustn't happen is for the senate to be packed with relatives of current MPs.

Edited September 30, 2013 by bigbamboo

[RickeyParkany]

The House-Senate meeting on Saturday approved the charter-amendment bill, which will change the Senate to an all-elected chamber and remove appointed senators.

This is amazing! A step in the right direction in my opinion. People who make laws should represent the people. Congratulations Thailand! (if it gets approved)

Yes it would be another step to help get wives, relatives & cronies of those in power to be elected & thus reduce the independence of the senate.

Independent? from what? *You gotta serve somebody!* (Bob Dylan)...the folks who are appointed get appointed by those wielding Power (Birds of a feather...) & are derivative of that Power (The apple doesn't fall far from the tree...).They do not represent Institutions (perhaps commendable) so much as vested /Corporate/ interests...Corporations are *Persons*, not *People*...get over it. ;-} rap.

[scorecard]

The House-Senate meeting on Saturday approved the charter-amendment bill, which will change the Senate to an all-elected chamber and remove appointed senators.

This is amazing! A step in the right direction in my opinion. People who make laws should represent the people. Congratulations Thailand! (if it gets approved)

Yes it would be another step to help get wives, relatives & cronies of those in power to be elected & thus reduce the independence of the senate.

And move closer and closer to total control by one group.

Why has this matter come up now? Easy answer - try anything that would get anything in place to get total control of the legislative processes - all for one specific purpose - pass the supposed executive decree to whitewash whoever, and you know who everybody includes and who is at the top of the list.

Dear Richard 10365: Ever heard of checks and balances?

[Yunla]

This type of thing explains why they don't have time to deal with less important matters, like flooding and lethal railways.

[iancnx]

What if there is no royal endorsement - has that ever happened?

That would be a constitutional conundrum. Presumably they constitutional court should know what to do.....

If this were to happen I would imagine it would be seen by some as a line drawn in the sand.

There are a lot of very very unhappy red voters around the country (rurally) right now. I wonder how those voters might be galvanised into temporarily forgetting rice, rubber, corn, food inflation, unemployment and flooding. Apparently 8 October is a significant date for some. Time to stockpile some beer maybe.

[Halion]

In a country noted for the high sensitivity regarding comments pertaining to the monarchy surely the headline regarding "the royal nod " lacks the deference that is a contiguous element in this culture.

[hellodolly]

Well to be honest there is valid arguments on both sides of the fence for this one. In my humble opinion.

How ever to get back to the practicality of the whole thing. Why can they not hold off until the constitutional court has a chance to rule and most important of all Does Yingluck realize this can not be done in a shopping mall?

[h90]

The House-Senate meeting on Saturday approved the charter-amendment bill, which will change the Senate to an all-elected chamber and remove appointed senators.

This is amazing! A step in the right direction in my opinion. People who make laws should represent the people. Congratulations Thailand! (if it gets approved)

appointed Senate or cronies and Senate that just bought the position....

hard to tell which is better.

[gabruce]

The House-Senate meeting on Saturday approved the charter-amendment bill, which will change the Senate to an all-elected chamber and remove appointed senators.

This is amazing! A step in the right direction in my opinion. People who make laws should represent the people. Congratulations Thailand! (if it gets approved)

I disagree. An appointed senate does work (reference Canada). One of the key points was that former politicians and their families could NOT be appointed, which helps limit concentration of power, which I believe is helpful. Now this restriction would no longer apply as anyone is eligible for election to the senate. Unfortunate. My opinion only of course and I am certainly not an expert.

[richard10365]

I hear everyone argument against this. None have convinced me this is not a good idea. My opinion might be slightly biased by how I feel about giving unqualified friends important jobs. If this is the case then eliminate the position so there are not no positions to give to the friends of the elected officials. Then give the Thai senate regional jurisdiction and not by individual province. This is really not too far off of how things are being ran now.

[tingtongteesood]

Let's hope the person who has the power in his hands does the right thing and sees this for the nonsense that it is....

[Bakseeda]

The House-Senate meeting on Saturday approved the charter-amendment bill, which will change the Senate to an all-elected chamber and remove appointed senators.

This is amazing! A step in the right direction in my opinion. People who make laws should represent the people. Congratulations Thailand! (if it gets approved)

But it does not explain just who will "elect" this new style senate... It certainly will NOT be the common peoples.. and if its is voted by MPs, the party with the majority will win out.. That scenario does not sound like democracy to me... Pull you head out of the toilet Richard and start thinking... TiT... PTP is not trying to make this change for "the good of the nation" But for the good of one family and their merry men... Its all about the money..! Coup seen heading this way .. and its not a Porche Coup... eh..?

[angmo]

The House-Senate meeting on Saturday approved the charter-amendment bill, which will change the Senate to an all-elected chamber and remove appointed senators.

This is amazing! A step in the right direction in my opinion. People who make laws should represent the people. Congratulations Thailand! (if it gets approved)

Yes it would be another step to help get wives, relatives & cronies of those in power to be elected & thus reduce the independence of the senate.

Actually that is the current situation. The elite keep passing their seats down to their relatives and friends. Definitely not democratic

[kimamey]

What if there is no royal endorsement - has that ever happened?

I haven't taken the time to check on this but I believe that it has. I've a feeling the last time was in 1954 (it sticks in my mind as it's the year I was born). Thailand and the UK have similar rules but they're handled in different ways.

In Thailand the monarch has the right to veto any legislation but parliament can then overturn that veto. Overturning the veto would appear as an insult to the monarch. I'm not sure if it would open MPs to action under the LM laws but then that's never been tested as far as I know. The king is supposed to be non political so the veto is only used if he feels there is some real threat to his subjects. Under these circumstances parliament looks at the legislation again taking into account his concerns.

In the UK the right to veto is also present with the same right of parliamant to overturn it but I don't think it's been used in recent history. Every Tuesday the PM meets with the queen to discuss what the government is doing. If the PM is unavailable then another senior minister will attend instead. I'm not sure what happens if the queen is out of the country on a visit but I would guess there is something in place to deal with this. Although the details of these meetings aren't released the queen's grasp of the facts is very good. She does get a report on parliamentary proceedings every day and she has been doing this since before many MPs were born. If she has any concerns then she will voice these at the meeting and they are taken into account but not necessarily acted upon.

It may well be that the king in Thailand also keeps abreast of the business in parliament and his views passed on so as to avoid the need for the veto. I would guess that he would normally not wish to interfere in politics unless he felt it were really needed.

These rights of veto occur in quite a few monarchies but they tend to be more for show than anything else and are probably similar to the two I've mentioned.

[khunken]

What if there is no royal endorsement - has that ever happened?

There was a similar lack of endorsement back around 2005. The newly elected senate (consisting of the TRT acolytes) decided to appoint a new (yes-man) Auditor General even though one had been already appointed who wasn't playing ball with Thaksin.

The newly requested approval was never endorsed and the original Auditor General continued in her job. An interesting side note to this is that when she reached retirement age she refused to step down - can't remember the reason why, if there was one.

[MrSlatersParrot]

There was a vote for the auditor general and she lost but was still appointed

She, senior member of PAD, went on and instigated the asset scrutiny committee against thaksin. She refused to leave her job after passing the official retirement age.

They should wither away.

[Noistar]

The House-Senate meeting on Saturday approved the charter-amendment bill, which will change the Senate to an all-elected chamber and remove appointed senators.

This is amazing! A step in the right direction in my opinion. People who make laws should represent the people. Congratulations Thailand! (if it gets approved)

Yes it would be another step to help get wives, relatives & cronies of those in power to be elected & thus reduce the independence of the senate.

Stop confusing things with common-sense logic.

The elected lower-house is running around using its electoral mandate as a loose cannon.

Let's ensure that a similar elected upper-house can do the same.

Congratulations Thailand? If Thailand was a mature democracy, perhaps. As things stand, god help Thailand.

[khunken]

There was a vote for the auditor general and she lost but was still appointed

She, senior member of PAD, went on and instigated the asset scrutiny committee against thaksin. She refused to leave her job after passing the official retirement age.

They should wither away.

Total rubbish - rewriting history again I see.

She was voted in by the (old) senate - she did not lose. The TRT acolyte Senate tried to vote in a Thaksin yes-man and failed. I suspect the PAD reference is a smear because she was involved in the investigation of Thaksin's corrupt gains - only one of the cases that he couldn't run away from.

Ah, one truth about her refusing to leave her job, which I previously mentioned. 90% rubbish then.

[richard10365]

The House-Senate meeting on Saturday approved the charter-amendment bill, which will change the Senate to an all-elected chamber and remove appointed senators.

This is amazing! A step in the right direction in my opinion. People who make laws should represent the people. Congratulations Thailand! (if it gets approved)

But it does not explain just who will "elect" this new style senate... It certainly will NOT be the common peoples.. and if its is voted by MPs, the party with the majority will win out.. That scenario does not sound like democracy to me... Pull you head out of the toilet Richard and start thinking... TiT... PTP is not trying to make this change for "the good of the nation" But for the good of one family and their merry men... Its all about the money..! Coup seen heading this way .. and its not a Porche Coup... eh..?

Not sure I understand why you don't think the common people will elect them. However, since the senate in Thailand is quite different than the senate I'm use to in the USA, perhaps others have misconceptions as well.

For example, according to Aj. Wiki, in 2007, only half of the senate was elected while the others were appointed. Since the senate was first created in 1947, there had not been 1 person elected by the common people of Thailand. So in 2007 half were elected. Now it's 6 years later and there is a proposal to elect 100% of the members of the senate.

I think this is a good move for Thailand.

Edited September 30, 2013 by richard10365

[steveromagnino]

For example, according to Aj. Wiki, in 2007, only half of the senate was elected while the others were appointed. Since the senate was first created in 1947, there had not been 1 person elected by the common people of Thailand. So in 2007 half were elected. Now it's 6 years later and there is a proposal to elect 100% of the members of the senate.

I think this is a good move for Thailand.

In 1997 the senate was mandated to be elected, and the first election for senators from memory was March 2000. This resulted in a split senate; despite all being elected as independents, about 1/4 were truly independent senators (like Meechai) and 3/4 were TRT lackies who were bought/influenced/whatever to rubber stamp whatever idiocy of the time that TRT wanted to get up to. Even though they were elected and ran on non party lines, in fact the result was to end up with even more mainstream godfather type candidates since no one knew who many of the independents were, so you voted for families you knew. Who knows what other payoffs and nights of the howling dogs were in place around then. A lot I would imagine.

Totally ineffective, and proof you do not need an upper house if they are only representatives of the lower house.

The new constitution hoped to get around this by introducing a group of non elected officials, representing specific parts of society.

Given that TRT managed to disrupt and remove every watch dog they could (including the auditor) with the mantra of 'we have a mandate from the people' one might say as an elected PM you should be allowed to defraud the government as much as you want, since you were given a mandate as you won an absolute majority. Obviously this is nonsensical, but is the end position if there are no watchdogs with teeth left.

The senate is and should be such a watchdog.

Personally I think the number of MPs and senators should be halved.

[siampolee]

There is a possibility that as some of the matters concerning this bill are awaiting a ruling from the Constitutional Court. Although there was an refusal to order an injunction there may well be a problem concerning the legality of the submission of the bill for royal assent due to one can only presume that certain matters are subject to a legal process.

Going to be interesting to see how this one goes.

In my view it's make or break for Thailand and more importantly the future of the Thai people and democracy add to that a possible disruption to domestic harmony twixt the various political groups here in Thailand and we have what may well be described as a bubbling cauldron of violence which may well boil over to the detriment of all concerned.

[rubl]

The House-Senate meeting on Saturday approved the charter-amendment bill, which will change the Senate to an all-elected chamber and remove appointed senators.

This is amazing! A step in the right direction in my opinion. People who make laws should represent the people. Congratulations Thailand! (if it gets approved)

But it does not explain just who will "elect" this new style senate... It certainly will NOT be the common peoples.. and if its is voted by MPs, the party with the majority will win out.. That scenario does not sound like democracy to me... Pull you head out of the toilet Richard and start thinking... TiT... PTP is not trying to make this change for "the good of the nation" But for the good of one family and their merry men... Its all about the money..! Coup seen heading this way .. and its not a Porche Coup... eh..?

Not sure I understand why you don't think the common people will elect them. However, since the senate in Thailand is quite different than the senate I'm use to in the USA, perhaps others have misconceptions as well.

For example, according to Aj. Wiki, in 2007, only half of the senate was elected while the others were appointed. Since the senate was first created in 1947, there had not been 1 person elected by the common people of Thailand. So in 2007 half were elected. Now it's 6 years later and there is a proposal to elect 100% of the members of the senate.

I think this is a good move for Thailand.

The 1997 constitution had all senators elected, the 2007 version 76 out of 150 elected, 74 appointed.

The idea was to avoid cronyism, nepotism, etc. in voting senators as is blatantly obvious many times in electing MPs. Of course in Thailand that doesn't work out too well either way.

BTW the reasoning of '100% elected is just and democratic' is not even completely true and valid in the Western World. Here in Thailand ... ...

Edited September 30, 2013 by rubl

[timewilltell]

The House-Senate meeting on Saturday approved the charter-amendment bill, which will change the Senate to an all-elected chamber and remove appointed senators.

This is amazing! A step in the right direction in my opinion. People who make laws should represent the people. Congratulations Thailand! (if it gets approved)

Small minds! The danger of little knowledge.

[richard10365]

The House-Senate meeting on Saturday approved the charter-amendment bill, which will change the Senate to an all-elected chamber and remove appointed senators.

This is amazing! A step in the right direction in my opinion. People who make laws should represent the people. Congratulations Thailand! (if it gets approved)

Small minds! The danger of little knowledge.

Totally agree!