THE LAWYER for former prime minister Yingluck Shinawatra has lambasted the junta over its order that enables asset seizures connected to the rice-pledging scheme without court rulings.

“It’s illegitimate and unfair,” Noppadon Laothong said yesterday about the order recently issued by National Council for Peace and Order (NCPO) chief General Prayut Chan-o-cha.

According to the order, the Legal Execution Department (LED) can seize the assets of culprits in the rice-pledging scheme based on an administrative order. Officials carrying out the confiscation shall not be held liable for any disciplinary, criminal and civil action related to the confiscation.

Yingluck is among ex-political office holders facing legal proceedings over allegations her government’s rice-pledging scheme was corrupt and caused massive damage to the country.

“By international protocols, all people are equal. They shall be subject to the same judicial process. Discrimination is not allowed,” Noppadon said. “How can some cases go to courts and some others do not?”

The lawyer said the order, which came out on September 13, was very unfair to Yingluck.

Noppadon said the order also interfered with the power of the LED, which by law should act only on a court order.

“So, definitely this NCPO order is against the rule of law. And representing Yingluck, I disagree with and oppose it,” he said.

In practice, implementation of the order must start from the Commerce Ministry issuing an administrative order identifying culprits in the rice-pledging scheme and demanding the seizure of the culprits’ assets.

But last week, top figures at the Commerce Ministry were apparently reluctant to sign such an order.

Commerce Minister Apiradi Tantraporn was quick to consult Prime Minister Prayut on whether she could ask the permanent secretary for Commerce to sign the order instead.

But after Prayut gave the green light for that to happen, permanent secretary for Commerce Chutima Boonyaprapat expressed reluctance to do so. A source said Chutima even considered taking leave until she retired at the end of this month.

Internal Trade Department director general Wiboonlasana Ruamraksa, who is set to succeed Chutima, has said she has no details about the rice-pledging scheme and trusts that she will not be forced to sign an asset-seizure order under pressure.

Government spokesman Maj-General Sansern Kaewkamnerd dismissed allegations that the government and the NCPO were determined to wipe out the Pheu Thai Party and its members. “No, we have no such intention. Any person who faces legal action, impeachment, asset seizure or a jail term is simply facing the consequences of their own actions,” he said.

If enacted, they would be authorised to summon fraudulent people and arrest them.

This role has been strongly criticised as some political observers claim it could violate a rule on the division of power.

The EC is scheduled to convene tomorrow to go through the first draft of the bill.

Under the draft, the EC will comprise seven commissioners as written in the new constitution.

Five commissioners will remain on duty until they finish their terms as drafted in the provisional chapter. Two commissioners will be selected within 30 days of the law’s promulgation. No more than five provincial ECs will be selected for each province.

The EC could issue an order forcing state officials in other agencies to assist it in its work, and if they fail the task and cause damage, punitive measures could be issued against them.

Fraud informants

The new draft has also addressed a new electoral-fraud suppression fund that aims to encourage informants to help the EC keep an eye on electoral fraud and report such incidents to the agency.

Meanwhile, EC chairman Supachai Somcharoen said he would meet with the Constitution Drafting Commission today to discuss further the second House of Representatives election draft bill that the EC submitted.

Supachai insisted that the authority to issue a controversial “black card”, denoting a lifetime political ban for fraudulent winning election candidates, was up to the CDC to decide.

The new constitution has addressed the point under MP qualifications,

but it is not literally written in any particular section, resulting in wide interpretation of the issue.

“It’s not surprising they’ve curbed the use of the military court now. I guess most of the prime antagonists of the NCPO [National Council for Peace and Order] have already had a case or two hanging in the military court for disobedience after these two years [of junta rule],” Rangsiman said.

The prominent anti-junta activist has defended himself and shared his opinions before the military court on several occasions.

The NCPO, after staging its coup in May 2014, issued hundreds of announcements and orders against those seen as opponents. In the early days after the power seizure, it ordered that crimes of sedition, lese majeste, and disobedience towards the regime be tried in a military court. The number of people charged with those offences – especially under Article 112 – were unusually and strikingly high. Almost 300 civilians have faced military trial in political cases, according to data collected by the Internet Law Reform Dialogue or iLaw.

Rights advocates, including international organisations, iLaw, and Thai Lawyers for Human Rights (TLHR), have constantly expressed concern about use of the military court. They said not only have the judges lacked legal education credentials, they were inexperienced for all but a small number of cases tried in the military court prior to the NCPO’s time.

The groups said their concerns had received hardly any attention from the official powers-that-be.

The Nation asked Rangsiman, who is known for his defiance of the ruling NCPO, what impression he had about the fairness or justice imposed by the court?

“I don’t think there should be any doubt regarding justice or fairness by the military court,” he said. “It is very military, affiliated with the Defence Ministry. And they are authorised to investigate cases involving the military or the NCPO. So, how should we expect it to be just or impartial?” Rangsiman has a background as a law student from Thammasat University and has been tried several times for sedition and disobedience of the NCPO orders.

Many activists in his clique “New Democracy Movement” and other pro-democracy factions have been sharing a similar fate since the NCPO took power two years ago.

“So, we should be done with asking for justice from the military court. I think it is pretty obvious civilians going on military trial are mostly the enemy of the NCPO. And they just use their power in the court against us,” Rangsiman said.

As an antagonist towards military rule, Rangsiman acknowledged some people might argue he was prejudiced.

But he stood his ground saying, “The fact that the junta used the military court against its enemy is no distortion.

“Other activists and I have been put in jail very late at night. It was beyond inappropriate and it was clear the court had an agenda against us, otherwise they would not have operated at such odd hours – like midnight.”

He said there was no way a regular court of justice would open late at night just to order imprisonment for such minor offences.

“This is not to mention how we do not exhibit any [intention] to flee or avoid the legal process. But still the court did not permit bail requests and put us in jail,” the activist said.

“I think it was beyond obvious they were trying to teach us a lesson or scare us away so we would stop acting against the junta.”

Now that the NCPO has curbed military trials on civilians, Rangsiman said he felt indifferent to it, reiterating most anti-junta activists already had cases before the court and would not benefit from the change.

Asked whether he would plead with the NCPO to consider transferring political cases to the normal courts of justice, he said: “First, I have to say again that I do not accept the NCPO’s rule. So, I’m not going to do anything about it.

“Second, the NCPO knows that cases against its opponents are already before the court. So, the [court change] would not do us any good while it helps brush up their image in the eyes of outsiders,” he said.

disobeying NCPO order offences to be heard in the Military Court.

In normal times, the Military Court has the same three tiers as the normal courts of justice.

However, in extraordinary times such as when martial law is declared, appeals are not allowed.

Crime suspects falling under NCPO Orders Nos 37 and 38/2557 could not request a new hearing until Martial Law was lifted in April of last year.

The Military Court is similar to the courts of justice in following the Criminal Procedure Code, but comes under the Defence Ministry, not the Justice Ministry.

The Military Court has a quorum of three, but two judges are military officers, not necessarily with a law degree.

Only one of the judges, known as a “staff judge advocate”, has academic

credentials.

Hearings and the investigation can be conducted in absentia if the

defendants plead guilty or do not specifically request otherwise.

Two years after the military took power, 1,811 people have been tried in the Military Court in connection with 1,546 cases, of which nearly three-quarters were about weapons offences.

The rest were lese majeste, security and disobedience of NCPO orders.

Sources: iLaw and Thai Lawyers for Human Rights

The PACC commissioner would then deliver the verdicts, he added.

Prayong said the PACC had received more than 850 complaints related to state officials who had worked in rice warehouses during the scandalous rice-pledging scheme under the Yingluckadministration.

He said if the PACC followed regular procedures, the process could take up to two years to complete and would unnecessarily add up the agency’s work for a long period of time.

Similar wrongdoing in similar times would be put in the same category to hasten investigations, the secretary general said.

The PACC would create guidelines for its officials to use so they adhered to the same standard of investigation, he said.

Prayong said the agency had almost 6,000 other graft cases as well. The PACC would work on them concurrently with cases about the rice-pledging scheme.

The respondents said they saw the need to punish convicted cheating politicians in a decisive and serious way – to set an example for possible offenders in the future.

Less than 4 per cent of those surveyed said they disagreed with allowing the EC to impose a lifetime ban on candidates. They argued that the punishment was too severe and that there was a possibility of the EC |making a wrong decision over such a matter.

The survey was conducted by Suan Dusit University’s Research Centre on 1,143 people in all regions of the country between last Tuesday and Friday.

Most respondents – more than 74 per cent – said they agreed with allowing the EC to issue four types of “cards” in line with the severity of electoral offences – either a yellow card, orange card, red card, or a black. They argued that this way, the problem of electoral fraud could be tackled |efficiently.

However, almost 54 per cent of respondents said they were worried it would be unfair to some candidates involved, as the EC would make its decisions unilaterally.

More than 54 per cent of those surveyed suggested that the original practice of having only “yellow cards” and “red cards” should be sufficient to tackle electoral fraud.

“Yellow cards” have been issued to suspend candidates suspected of having cheated, while the “red card” has been issued to void the victory of elected MPs found to have won by dishonest means.

Meanwhile, the National Reform Steering Assembly (NRSA) will discuss proposals tomorrow to fight corruption that include requirements for senior public officials, in addition to political office holders, to report their financial status to the National Anti-Corruption Commission.

The proposals have been made by the NRSA’s reform committee on the fight against corruption, which is headed by former NACC president Panthep Klanarongran.

A suggested measure calls for the NACC to revise its regulations to require that all state officials with the responsibility of approving state hiring and procurement to regularly report details about their incomes and debts, including those of their spouses and minor children.

The discussion will concentrate on the intention of the drafters who wrote in the charter that people found guilty of election fraud must receive a lifetime ban on standing in elections.

The EC submitted a draft organic law on the election of members of the House of Representatives to the CDC yesterday. The drafters will deliberate on whether the law is in line with the constitution draft, passed in the referendum last month.

The EC had earlier disclosed that under the law it could issue colour-coded cards to disqualify candidates, which drew heavy criticism from political parties, particularly in regard to a clause in the law that would result in the agency issuing a ‘black card’ or lifetime ban to election candidates found guilty of fraud by a court.

EC member Somchai Srisuthiyakorn asked people not to blame the EC over the matter. He said it had been written in the constitution draft that the organic laws must be in line with the charter and the lifetime ban was not an EC initiative.

Electoral expert Jarungwit Pumma explained that the organic law followed Article 235 of the constitution, which stated that anyone stripped of their electoral rights must not be able to contest any political election or hold any political position.

Jarungwit said Article 98 of the charter detailed the disqualification of MP candidates and stated that anyone found guilty of electoral fraud must not be eligible to contest another election.

He said the measure would not be applied retroactively to banned politicians unless they were found guilty of electoral fraud.

The new organic law would also result in changes to election campaigning.

Somchai said leaders of political parties would be featured in televised debates with critics and competitors. This would allow the public to see exchanges on policies before deciding how to vote.

He said the proposal requiring political parties to submit policies to the EC before campaigning stemmed from the agency being responsible for creating public relations material to be sent to voters.

He denied the EC would censor or filter the policies, but if a policy might have a negative impact on the country’s security, the agency would issue a warning and call for the party to remove the offending material. If a party did not cooperate, the EC could file a lawsuit against its personnel.

The EC also stressed the draft organic law was not yet in its final version. The CDC would look at the law’s details before finalising it, the agency said.

The offence is regarded as an abuse of power under the previous 2007 Constitution and a severe ethical violation under the Prime Minister Office’s Code of Ethics for Civil Servants.

Sukampol, a former assistant Air Force commander-in-chief, served as defence minister in a government led by the Pheu Thai Party’s Yingluck Shinawatra.

Of the NLA members who attended yesterday’s meeting, 159 voted to impeach Sukampol, with 27 voting against. There was one abstention.

At least three-fifths of the existing 217 NLA members, or 131 votes, were required to impeach him.

The impeachment means Sukampol is banned from politics for five years, during which time he will be unable to assume any political or government position.

Sukampol yesterday shrugged off the NLA’s decision, saying that the impeachment would have no impact on him because he was not interested in being involved in politics anymore.

“I am not a professional politician and I have no plan to contest future elections to become an MP,” he said.

He also said that he had heard there was much lobbying for the NLA members to impeach him.