He said the amendment must be approved within 15 days and today’s deliberations would be time-consuming as each member would have to be called upon and pronounce their vote vocally for the first and the last readings.

Pornpetch said he expected the amendments to be finalised today, although another meeting would be held tomorrow if issues were still outstanding.

The NLA president said that Deputy Prime Minister Wissanu Krea-ngam would represent the Cabinet at today’s session. The representative must endorse any change to the draft amendment proposed by any NLA member.

The amendment of the interim constitution of 2014 deals with two major points. One regards the designation of a regent, allowing His Majesty the King to not name a regent when he is outside of the Kingdom or when unable to perform his duties. The other point would allow the prime minister to reacquire the charter after the King’s review and amend it as suggested.

Pornpetch repeated Wissanu’s assurance that only aspects of the charter relating to the chapter on the King would be amended.

Pornpetch said the amendment would be Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha’s responsibility after the King returns the charter to him.

“The prime minister will appoint a special panel [made up of] members of the Council of State. I will also sit on the panel because I am a member of the council,” he said.

The NLA president said he believed the amendment would not affect the timetable for the deliberation of organic laws, which would only begin after the charter was officially promulgated, he said.

The Constitution Drafting Commission (CDC) has not yet submitted the draft organic laws to the NLA, he added, but the two bodies had been in contact and the NLA had asked the CDC to unofficially submit the draft laws for early examination.

Pornpetch said a committee would be set up to address the request, adding that the CDC was not yet ready to send a draft, even unofficially, as it had not yet finalised the laws.

Wissanu said yesterday that the amendment of the new charter would not start until the amendment of the interim charter was completed.

Earlier yesterday, Prayut said the advice to make changes to the charter draft, approved in the national referendum last August, had been passed down from the King’s working group. He said he had received an official letter from the working group and that it was not direct advice from the King.

“The government works on our part. And for the royal institution, there is the personal working group,” the premier said.

“They [the group] considered the amendment and passed it down after proposing it to His Majesty. That’s all. And I proceed accordingly.”

Prayut said reports that the King had suggested revisions to the constitution draft were incorrect and he showed a report on his smartphone from a foreign media outlet that featured the allegedly false report. The premier added that the international report was damaging to the country’s reputation.

Local reporters, however, insisted that during his weekly press briefing on Tuesday, the prime minister had said that His Majesty had suggested three or four points in the constitution’s chapter on the King that needed amendment.

Prayut replied that he meant the King had passed the advice through the Privy Council, insisting it was not direct advice and again stressed that the reports tarnished the country’s image.