PRIME Minister General Prayut Chan-o-cha insisted yesterday that the government would wait for a ruling by the Constitutional Court on a controversial part of the referendum law before considering any further action.

Prayut denied that the junta would cancel the referendum if the second paragraph of Article 61 had to be dropped.

“How could you have such a thought?” Prayut asked during his weekly news briefing. “The court will rule on the specific article. Don’t bring it up as an issue involving the whole act [law].”

Officials from the Ombudsman’s Office submitted a petition to the court on Monday seeking a ruling on whether the second part of Article 61 in the new referendum law violates Article 4 of the interim charter’s guarantee of freedom of expression.

The move was prompted by a petition to the office by a group of scholars asking for the case to be forwarded to the court.

The clause in question prohibits the dissemination of “untrue”, “provocative”, “vulgar” or “aggressive” messages through print, electronic media or other channels that could incite unrest ahead of the referendum.

If the court rules against the section, the government and relevant agencies would be obliged to amend the law.

The red shirts, meanwhile, have also made a request to the court, asking it to decide within seven days whether to accept the agency’s petition for judicial review.

Prayut hit out at the United Front for Democracy against Dictatorship for filing a petition to the court.

“Do they have rights to accelerate the court? I myself don’t even do that,” he said.

The government’s administrative team would be in charge if a conflict occurs during the referendum process, the prime minister said. However, he said, in regard to whether the Election Commission would continue the vote on the referendum in the event of a conflict arising, or not – both things were possible.

“But I won’t accept people using war [grade] weapons against one another,” he said.

The prime minister also refused to confirm the UDD’s claim that the EC’s referendum budget could be as high as Bt10 billion.

“I only said that the EC had been allocated Bt3 billion and I haven’t approved any further budget. Show me evidence if you’re saying otherwise,” Prayut said angrily.

Meanwhile, Constitutional Court Judge Charan Phakdhi-thanakul declined to disclose the court’s approach to making a judgement on the issue. It would be premature to comment and would contradict the arbitrator’s principle, he said.

However, the judge said the court always tried to be as quick as possible because every issue entering the court matters, and cited the notable quote “Justice delayed is justice denied.”

The director of iLaw, Jon Ungpakorn, who led the scholars’ petition, said the verdict should come this month because it involved rights and freedoms of the people and the court did not have other cases to look into.

Deputy prime ministers, meanwhile, echoed Prayut‘s remark on the impact of the ruling, saying the controversial clause, if annulled, would not invalidate the entire bill and the referendum would not be called off.

Deputy Prime Minister Prawit Wongsuwan, also a key man in the military’s ruling National Council for Peace and Order, said the regime was still following its agenda and had not talked about cancelling the referendum, in response to politicians’ claims that the upcoming vote might not happen.

Given the current peaceful atmosphere, the referendum would be held according to plan, he said.

Prawit said NCPO executives would not interfere in the court’s decision on Article 61. It would depend solely on the court to rule, and the government had no other plans.

Deputy PM Wissanu Krea-ngam said that however the court rules, the referendum planned for August 7 would not be affected. He said there were many chapters in the referendum law and they would remain, even if some clauses were nullified.

“Don’t get too excited. The government is not excited about this because it has no impact on the ballot,” Wissanu said. “Up until now, there was no need to amend or nullify anything. If the court rules that it’s unconstitutional, then only the embattled part becomes invalid.”