Constitutional Court sets March 12 for ruling of 2-trillion baht loan bill

[webfact]

Constitutional Court sets March 12 for ruling of 2-trillion baht loan bill



BANGKOK: -- The Constitutional Court today announced to make a verbal ruling of the constitutionality of the 2-trillion baht loan bill on March 12.

Announcement by the court came after it has considered the petition of the Democrat party seeking its ruling of whether the controversial infrastructure loan bill breaches constitution.

The bill empowering the Finance Ministry to seek two trillion baht loan through special channels to finance the government’s infrastructure projects, one of which is the high-speed train project to the North.

The court opened first hearing of the loan bill on January 8 for ruling if it violates Section 169 Paragraph, and Section 170 of the Constitution.

The bill passed final approval by the Senate at 2.30 a.m. in a hush-hush manner on November 20 with a vote of 63 to 13, and passed the House of Representatives with a vote of 287 to 105 on September 21. It has been forwarded for royal endorsement but stalled pending ruling by the court after the opposition questioned the legitimacy of the loan bill.

Source: http://englishnews.thaipbs.or.th/constitutional-court-sets-march-12-ruling-2-trillion-baht-loan-bill/


-- Thai PBS 2014-03-05

[Scamper]

This will be a significant ruling. In effect, it places the former Yingluck administration's practices of delegation of funds that bypasses ongoing parliamentary oversight provisions - essentially issuing a blank cheque with no detailed accounting of allocation of funds or exactly where it ends up - under the microscope. The Democratic party was right in bringing this 2 trillion baht bill to the attention of the Constitutional Court. This bill summarizes everything about how Pheu Thai governed.

[Dogmatix]

There seems no chance that this could get past the Constitutional Court. Article 170 clearly states that state expenditures have to go through the budgetary approval process. Thaksin just wanted to get his hands on the money so badly and thought no one would dare challenge his sister's majority. Seems like another of his famous miscalculations driven by arrogance and greed.

No doubt there will be a case filed by the NACC against the MPs and senators who approved an unconstitutional law, once this is dumped by the court. Most of them are already up for prosecution over the Senate reform bill.

[Fat Haggis]

Kind of gives the impression that Yingluck isn't going anywhere not till the 12th of March anyway

[pmugghc]

So far none of our regular Thai Rouge supporters has come out in favor of this 2TB loan that bypasses the normal parlamentary scrutiny. Interesting.

Sent from my Nexus 7 using Thaivisa Connect Thailand mobile app

Edited March 5, 2014 by pmugghc

[winstonc]

So far none of our regular Thai Rouge supporters has come out in favor of this 2TB loan that bypasses the normal parlamentary scrutiny. Interesting.

Sent from my Nexus 7 using Thaivisa Connect Thailand mobile app

to be honest i dont think who ever you favour.its just such a wrong thing to do to this kingdom...the amount to be stolen beggars belief in itself...

[bigbamboo]

Logic and reason dictate the court will reject the loan bill as it stands as unsound, especially with regard to the pie in the sky high speed rail line which will be prohibitively expensive and totally unnecessary. Borrow money to upgrade the rail network and look to the Chinese to assist with a line into China as they doing with the Burmese through to India.

Any other verdict should elicit a quick rummage through the judges bins for ripped apart brown envelopes.

[metisdead]

Posts using derogatory nicknames or intentional misspelling of people’s names will be removed. If you don’t want your post to be removed, spell people’s names correctly.

Other off topic posts and replies have been removed. This is about the court ruling for the 2 Trillion Baht loan bill, not about a Civilian Coup d'etat.

[rickirs]

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This will be a significant ruling. In effect, it places the former Yingluck administration's practices of delegation of funds that bypasses ongoing parliamentary oversight provisions - essentially issuing a blank cheque with no detailed accounting of allocation of funds or exactly where it ends up - under the microscope. The Democratic party was right in bringing this 2 trillion baht bill to the attention of the Constitutional Court. This bill summarizes everything about how Pheu Thai governed.

The bill passed final approval by the Senate on November 20 with a vote of 63 to 13, and passed the House of Representatives with a vote of 287 to 105 on September 21. The bill was approved by the parliament. How does this "bypass ongoing parliamentary oversight provisions?" Is it just because there were no Democrats to oppose the bill because THEY LEFT THE GOVERNMENT? If the Democrats were so concerned about parliament oversight of any PTP sponsored legislation they should have stayed in the Parliament. But instead chose to leave to overthrow the government and yet charge PTP with bypassing parliament oversight. The Democrats should be charged with criminal derelection of duty then.

[EyesWideOpen]

I thought this two trillion baht spending bill ( also known as The most massive filling of the

feeding trough in the history of Thailand) was completely dead in the water and long gone.

I am very surprised that there would be any sort of ruling on it..... At this point everyone knows

the transport bill funding was to quietly keep the rice scam alive, as well as for general looting purposes.

Now that the rice scam has completely blown up, I am surprised this bill has come up again.

[MunterHunter]

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This will be a significant ruling. In effect, it places the former Yingluck administration's practices of delegation of funds that bypasses ongoing parliamentary oversight provisions - essentially issuing a blank cheque with no detailed accounting of allocation of funds or exactly where it ends up - under the microscope. The Democratic party was right in bringing this 2 trillion baht bill to the attention of the Constitutional Court. This bill summarizes everything about how Pheu Thai governed.

The bill passed final approval by the Senate on November 20 with a vote of 63 to 13, and passed the House of Representatives with a vote of 287 to 105 on September 21. The bill was approved by the parliament. How does this "bypass ongoing parliamentary oversight provisions?" Is it just because there were no Democrats to oppose the bill because THEY LEFT THE GOVERNMENT? If the Democrats were so concerned about parliament oversight of any PTP sponsored legislation they should have stayed in the Parliament. But instead chose to leave to overthrow the government and yet charge PTP with bypassing parliament oversight. The Democrats should be charged with criminal derelection of duty then.

Well considering the PTP government passed this at 2:30am when most/all of the opposition lawmakers were at home in bed sleeping speaks volumes it. If the 2 trillion baht spending spree was solely for the benefit of the country, why the need to pass it at some ungodly hour of the morning when there is no oppositon in parliment... this bill sounds dodgy to the extreme

food for thought...

[siampolee]

Should not the actual loan process be on hold until such time as a properly mandated government is in place thus then there would one hopes be a properly defined plan regarding what this money is being allocated for and then used for and where it is actually going?

No caretaker government should be in a position to actually implement such an enormous financial expenditure as in reality they do not have a popular mandate to govern for a given length of time nor are they in a position to be held responsible for the direction those funds may flow.

One must ask why here is such a pressing need for the allocation of these funds to a caretaker government?

Indeed to my mind and I am sure many others too the whole matter of this demand for the funds is somewhat suspicious..