Deputy Prime Minister Wissanu Krea-ngam, meanwhile, said that if the Constitutional Court ruled that clause 2 of Article 61 of the Referendum Act 2016 contradicts Article 4 of the 2014 interim charter, the clause can be exempted.

The clause states that propagation of information that is inconsistent with the truth, or can be deemed violent, aggressive, rude, inciting or threatening and aims to prevent voters from casting their ballot or influence their vote shall be seen as disrupting the voting process. This will be deemed a criminal offence and will be punishable by law.

Wissanu said there was no need to amend Article 61, as this law was only used for the referendum. He also rejected claims by the red-shirt United Front for Democracy against Dictatorship that the government had spent Bt10 billion, overshooting the Bt2.9 billion budget for the referendum. He said the spending for the referendum was still within the budget, which included the training for charter draft specialists.

NLA member Somchai Sawaengkarn also insisted that Article 61 was not in breach of the interim charter’s Article 4. He will be among those who will testify in court over the matter.

He said that the NLA, the Constitution Drafting Commission and the government had met political parties and activists last month to explain that the referendum law did not violate the interim charter.

Meanwhile, Pheu Thai Party issued a statement calling on the government, the NCPO and related agencies to unconditionally return to people their right to express their opinion on the draft charter so the referendum could be free and fair and acceptable to all citizens and people of the civilised world.

The party said the Referendum Act empowers government and state officials to openly campaign or influence people into accepting the draft charter. These activities are funded by the taxpayers’ money, it pointed out. On the other hand, those who oppose the draft charter are not able to express their opinion in the same manner.

Election Commission member Somchai Srisuthiyakorn posted a message on Facebook warning people to not post messages that are vulgar or false to influence people’s referendum vote.

He said the EC was looking at a “vulgar” music clip that has been posted on Facebook. If the clip had been posted after April 23, then it would be a punishable offence because the referendum law had already taken effect by then, he said. He explained that if the clip was posted before April 23, the person who posted it would not be committing a crime, but anybody who had shared the clip thereafter may face legal action. The clip is also available on YouTube.

Those appearing in the clip are advised to report to police and say that they had no knowledge that it was in violation of the referendum act if it was done before April 23. If there are more than five people involved in posting the clip, they may be in violation of clause 4 of Article 61 of the referendum law.

Somchai said the EC was also considering action against the Neo Democracy movement, which has been selling T-shirts with the message “vote no”.

He added that the EC could not wait for a ruling from the Constitutional Court because, as long as the Referendum Act is in force, the EC must take action or it will be sued for negligence.