Thai politics: Meechai indicates broad principles rather than fine detail

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BURNING ISSUE
Meechai indicates broad principles rather than fine detail
ATTAYUTH BOOTSRIPOOM

BANGKOK: -- THE CHAIRMAN of the Constitution Drafting Commission deserves praise for his apparent desire to make the new constitution concise and comprehensive, in line with the principles of master law drafting.

Meechai Ruchupan expressed his intention to make the new charter as concise as possible during a recent interview, in which he seemed to espouse the virtues of broad principles over fine detail.

"I'll ask during the next CDC meeting if the members want to write a draft with details or one that is concise and comprehensive. I'll ask them if it should be designed from scratch or if we should simply edit the version written by Borwornsak [uwanno, chairman of the previous CDC]," Meechai said.

"Personally, I want it be concise but I don't know if the other members will agree with me. If the charter is concise, we will write a framework to prevent squabbling in the future."

His statement was very interesting considering Thai charters of the past, including the recently-rejected draft of the previous CDC, have been getting longer and more detailed.

Thai charters began to grow in length after the 1997 constitution, which was regarded as the first political reform charter. Before the 1997 charter, Thai constitutions were short and did not go into much detail.

The length of a charter is measured by words, not by the number of articles.

The first interim constitution of Thailand after the country changed from an Absolute Monarch to a Constitutional Monarchy in 1932 had only 2,000 words. And the first permanent charter, also enacted in 1932, had 3,700 words.

Several amended versions were longer but not by much. For example, the 1974 charter had 15,000 words and the 1991 constitution had 16,000 words.

Following political reforms in 1997, the length of the constitution doubled to 37,000 words. Ten years later, the 2007 charter, which was enacted after the 2006 coup, was further lengthened to 44,000 words.

The rejected draft of Borwornsak ran to 49,000 words.

Of course, drafters had their reasons for making later charters longer.

In 1997, the charter drafters saw that members of Thai society were bent on seeking legal loopholes, so they tried to put everything in the charter to ensure law enforcement because the charter was the country's highest law.

However, no matter how much detail the charters went into, they were always interpreted in favour of the people in power. Plenty of instances are also on record where previous governments failed to comply with the charters. For example, several organic laws required by the 2007 charter had not been enacted when the charter was annulled by the 2007 coup.

It's the view of law academics that putting everything in a charter runs against the principle of drafting a constitution. They believe that a charter should contain principles without details - the details should be written in organic laws. They point out that a charter with too many details can simply be amended in the future.

They also point out that when a charter has too many details, what has not been stated in the charter would provide legal loopholes for those seeking to abuse the laws.

It is heartening to hear Meechai indicate that the next charter might be written in line with the principles of master law drafting, with broad principles rather than fine details.

But under this kind of irregular political situation, concerns are that if the charter fails to state everything clearly and if details are left out to be stated in organic laws, the CDC might make the draft appear presentable enough to be accepted in a referendum. But critics are worried that the draft might also be ambiguous with details of what the public disliked, probably to be put into organic laws later.

Anyway, Meechai has started his work based on the correct principle of charter writing. It has yet to be seen whether or not things play out as some critics fear they will.

Source: http://www.nationmultimedia.com/politics/Meechai-indicates-broad-principles-rather-than-fin-30270929.html

-- The Nation 2015-10-15

[Emster23]

Like the saying goes "The devil is in the details". Perhaps something like this?

All Thais have a right to freedom

1.except to form political parties that oppose government

2. or have assemblies of more than 5 people

3. or freedom of speech to express opinions

4. or freedom of press to report truth without reprisals

5. may be sued and/or jailed if share truth of powerful wrong doings

6. anything else we may have missed...

[Srikcir]

Meechai wants a concise constitution?

Need only one article - "Elitists rule - all others obey."