The case had been taken to the court by 36 members of the National Legislative Assembly (NLA) last month after a question was raised over whether it would be constitutional to allow the president and the Ombudsman to stay on.

The new charter requires members of independent agencies who fail to meet new qualifications, as addressed in the charter, to leave office, and the Constitution Drafting Commission (CDC) has been writing related organic laws in line with that stipulation.

CDC chairman Meechai Ruchupan explained that, so far, the CDC had only written into law the removal of members of one agency -– the National Human Rights Commission – because international issues were involved. Members of another agency, the Election Commission, faced a similar fate after a proposal by the NLA itself.

The 36 NLA legislators viewed that the new charter already gave power to the organic law to determine the matter.

The original draft written by the CDC stipulated that the Ombudsman’s office should be reset if the incumbents failed to meet the new qualifications, and a new president and Ombudsman should be recruited.

Meechai said the court’s ruling on the Ombudsman law just upheld the NLA’s authority to dictate whether to remove or maintain members of independent agencies. The CDC thus could not raise any objection, he said.

Whether this would become the model for other organic laws depended solely on the NLA’s deliberations, Meechai said.

The CDC chairman insisted that the organic laws governing the next National Anti-Corruption Commission (NACC) and the Constitutional Court should state that those who did not meet the new stipulations should leave office as set down in the charter.

But it would depend on the NLA how it would revise the draft law before it passed the required three readings, he said.

Meechai declined to comment whether the ruling could cause a future constitutional crisis. He said he would need to see the full verdict first.

In a separate interview, CDC spokesman Chartchai Na Chiangmai expressed similarly that the new charter should be taken into consideration when determining who could stay on in independent agencies and who should leave.

Allowing some commissioners to remain in office and exempt them from the new charter was inappropriate, Chartchai added.

It was difficult to say whether the court’s ruling on the Ombudsman organic law would be problematic, he said.

On writing the organic law governing the NACC, Chartchai said the CDC maintained the same principles, that the commissioners could only stay on if they were qualified under the new charter.