The move to have no elected senators is aimed at balancing the power of the Upper House against the elected Lower House.

The source from the National Council for Peace and Order (NCPO) said the junta did not want the new charter to be rejected in the national referendum because of a special mechanism or body to check and balance the power of the government. They agreed to bank on the Senate to carry out this role.

The source said the NCPO has not resolved whether it wanted all 200 senators to be selected and what their roles and responsibilities should |be.

One of the proposals is for senators to have the power to vote in the PM and launch a no-confidence debate.

The NCPO has not decided if it wants the senators to serve a five-year term or less because in five years they can vote in a PM twice, as a member of Parliament’s term is four years. The junta fears that if this were the case, the new charter would be opposed.

The source said the junta’s formula on acquiring senators and their roles would work only if Prayut accepts to be nominated as PM after a general election.

If Prayut declines and lets other military leaders who do not have the public backing to be nominated as PM, there might be political turmoil, as seen in May 1992 when a pro-democracy movement protested against the General Suchinda Kraprayoon government.

“If Prayut does not want to be nominated, this formula should not be used, otherwise there would be a crisis,” the source said.

Prayut has softened his stance against staying in power longer. Last week he was asked if the government would stay in office after the |general election and he replied |that the possibility has to be considered.

“You have to think what should be next, otherwise don’t blame me for not achieving the mission. How you want things to be is up to you,” Prayut said.

Deputy Prime Minister Prawit Wongsuwan said senators during a five-year transitional period would come from an indirect election and have extra responsibility in overseeing national strategies and reform.

The Senate would carry out duties normally and not create a temporary mechanism during the transition, he said.

Prawit’s suggestion for selected senators in the charter met with criticism that the move was a step back in terms of democracy and was an attempt by the junta to continue its grip on power.

Chatchai na Chiangmai, spokesman for the Constitution Drafting Commission, dismissed the criticism, saying the charter clearly stipulated that officials of all agencies who step down will no longer have any power.

“Charter writers cannot write a charter that prevents any subtle power that exists,” he said.

PM’s Office Minister Suwaphan Tanyuvardhana said after meeting Prayut for one hour that the PM wanted him to draw up a five-year reform plan and prioritise issues that have to be completed within one, two and five years.

The Criminal and Appeals courts had previously sentenced Jatuporn to six months in jail and fined him Bt50,000. The sentence was suspended for two years on grounds that Jatuporn had never served time.

The lawsuit filed by Abhisit said that Jatuporn had taken to the stage during the 2010 red-shirt protest and accused the former PM of being a draft-dodger and ordering the killing of people. The suit said Jatuporn did not just make the accusation before the crowd but also via the People Channel, which was broadcast live across the country.

The Supreme Court acquitted Jatuporn of libel for accusing Abhisit of being a draft-dodger, saying it was an honest comment and at the time as an opposition MP, Jatuporn also asked Abhisit in Parliament about the draft-dodging accusations.

However, the court found Jatuporn guilty of defaming Abhisit by accusing him of plotting clashes between the authorities and the red-shirt protesters at Chulalongkorn Hospital so he could order a crackdown on the protesters. The court said no such clashes had taken place.

 

The witnesses for the defendants include five unnamed Chinese businessmen and officials based in China and Singapore, who will testify in the case from their country of residence. It is the first time that the Supreme Court on criminal offences of political office holders has granted permission to hear witnesses via video teleconferencing.

Former commerce minister Boonsong welcomed the move and said it will prove the status of Guangdong Stationary and Sporting Goods Import and Export, and Hainan Grain and Oil Industrial Trading. He said that he had not asked the court to allow senior executives of these two firms to testify. The two Chinese companies were involved in the allegedly fake G-to-G rice deals.

Earlier, another state witness in a related rice-pledging case involving former premier Yingluck Shinawatra, testified that the previous government had committed to sell 14 million tonnes under G-to-G deals, but there were valid contracts for only 1 million tonnes.

These rice-sale contracts were supposed to be a crucial part of the previous government’s rice-subsidy scheme for which nearly Bt1 trillion of taxpayers’ money was used to buy rice at a price much higher than the prevailing market price, resulting in an estimated loss of Bt500 billion.

Besides Boonsong, a former deputy commerce minister, and other state officials, as well as executives of seven private firms were also charged in the fake G-to-G rice deal case for collusion in government procurement contracts and other criminal offences.

Among the private firms involved in this case are Kij Tawee Yasothorn Rice Mill, Kij Tawee Yasothorn Rice Co Ltd, KMC Inter Rice (2002) Co, and Jia Meng Co whose executives were allegedly aiding state officials to violate the laws.

Meanwhile, the court approved the public prosecutor’s request to include more witnesses and evidence in this case, including Duangporn Rodpayad, director-general of the Foreign Trade Department, who will testify on details of G-to-G deals and an official of state-owned Krungthai Bank, who will testify on financial details of these transactions.

The next hearings are scheduled for Jan 18, Jan 25, and Feb 1 and Feb 15, 2016.Private company executives suspected of involvement in this case have been released temporarily on bail of Bt5 million each.

The aim was to keep those booked for minor crimes or facing less than five-year imprisonment from entering the juridical process by giving prosecutors the authority to consider dropping the cases and not pressing charges.

Deputy Prime Minister Wissanu Krea-ngam said this could prevent or solve the problem of overcrowded prisons.

Those with minor political charges could also benefit from what could be similar to an amnesty, he said.

Whether the bill might apply to past prime ministers Thaksin Shinawatra and his sister Yingluck depended on the types of charges.

According to the bill, instead of seeking an indictment, prosecutors could give some time for a suspect to improve his behaviour. Then they might withhold legal action and lift the charges against that person.

Attempts by many governments since Thanin’s time to enact similar legislation have failed.

The draft bill would now be forwarded to the National Legislative Assembly for deliberation, Wissanu said.

The resolution clears up an ambiguity in the interim charter.

Some analysts had interpreted Article 37 of the interim charter as meaning that the majority of votes of “eligible voters” were required to pass the referendum. Others said passage should depend only a majority of voters who actually turned out for the referendum because otherwise it would be nearly impossible for the charter to pass.

After a joint meeting yesterday, Deputy Prime Minister Wissanu Krea-ngam said the Election Commission (EC) had proposed that the interim charter be amended to stipulate that the referendum could pass with a simple majority of votes cast, noting that abstentions and voided ballots were not counted as votes.

“For instance, if the ‘yes’ votes are 8 million when the ‘no’ votes are 5 million and the abstentions and the voided votes total 12 million, the charter still passes the referendum. This is because the ‘yes’ votes outnumber the ‘no’,” he said.

Wissanu expressed confidence that the stipulation did not allow for any loopholes and that there should not be further doubts on the issue.

The deputy PM said the Cabinet and the NCPO had not discussed yesterday further options if the referendum fails to pass.

“It was no use discussing that today because we don’t know whether it will pass or fail. If it passes, we won’t have to come up with any plans,” Wissanu said. “If we say that the 1997 Constitution will be used when the charter fails then questions will arise: why we don’t choose the 2007 or the 1978 versions and so on. And we cannot just ask open-ended questions like ‘what would you like it to be after the charter is rejected?’ because the referendum does not work that way.”

The meeting also resolved that the National Legislative Assembly (NLA) could propose additional questions to ask people in a referendum.

The previously planned referendum for the first charter draft, which was subsequently rejected, would have allowed the now-defunct National Reform Council (NRC) to propose a question to be raised in the referendum, but for the new referendum the National Reform Steering Assembly (NRSA) will not have that authority, which will be limited only to the NLA.

Wissanu added that the NLA’s questions could be submitted directly to the EC without being censored by the government.

In regard to the distribution of the charter draft, Wissanu said they had resolved to repeal a stipulation that copies of the draft should be distributed to at least 80 per cent of the total eligible households.

He explained there were other means whereby voters could read the charter draft before casting their votes. The Constitution Drafting Commission (CDC) was working on expanding access, he said, including publishing the draft content online.

Additionally, any citizen 18 or older on the day of the referendum would be eligible to vote, Wissanu said.

The meeting resolved yesterday that a plebiscite would be governed by two laws, Wissanu said, including the amended version of the 2014 interim charter and the referendum voting bill, which would be the responsibility of the EC.

EC commissioner Somchai Srisutthiyakorn said yesterday the referendum bill had already been initially developed and revised. The EC would endorse the draft in a meeting before forwarding it to the Cabinet this week, he said.

On Monday, Wissanu sent back the previous draft to the EC, questioning a proposal to use Article 44, which grants the NCPO sweeping powers, to oversee referendum campaigns instead of issuing a new law.

Somchai said the EC bill should be finalised after the interim charter was completely amended because it had to conform to the charter.

Both Wissanu and Somchai said the bill would set rules similar to those addressed in organic laws in 2009. Authorities also reiterated that campaigns for and against the charter draft were permissible, but not advocating for a boycott of the referendum.

Ong-art Klampaiboon, a deputy leader of Democrat Party, expressed support for the bill.

“There should be a referendum bill and it should say clearly that campaigns for or against the draft can be performed. Otherwise, some people might use this point against the CDC and it could also affect the referendum,” he said.

EC analyst Thanit Sriprathet said the EC is given two types of funding by the Budget Bureau. One type is for expenses such as salaries, allowances and perks, and another is for development projects, investments and holding elections.

The Bureau had never allocated enough money for salary expenses, Thanit said. “We survive because we have leftover funds from the election, which is not a lot. The law does not require we give back the leftover money. We do not splurge.” He said the EC had been building 40 provincial offices using leftover funds and has never asked for more funds than for that purpose.

“If the Budget Bureau knows that we have a liquidity problem, it will allocate more funds,” he said.

Meanwhile, the EC rejected a budget proposal for the public referendum after it found that some projects were repetitive and unnecessary.

A new proposal would be submitted for Cabinet approval, Thanit said.

LEGISLATION for the public referendum on the new constitution presented by the Election Commission (EC) has been rejected because it proposed that the law be issued under Article 44 of the provisional charter, Deputy Prime Minister Wissanu Krea-ngam said yesterday.

He said the referendum law must take the form of an act or royal decree because there are many provisions.

If they were issued under Article 44, it could lead to legal interpretation and intention of the lawproblems.

The law only had 16 articles, which did not cover all issues related to the referendum, he said.

“I have instructed the EC to write about 20 or 30 articles,” he said.

The EC would amend the proposed bill and resubmit it to him soon for approval, the deputy PM said.

The Council of State has not finished revising the amendment to the interim charter for the referendum.

When it is ready, it must be submitted to the Cabinet and the National Council for Peace and Order for approval.

The amendment was on the criteria of voters, which would be completed by next month.

He said the government had not yet decided what solution to do if the charter is rejected in the referendum.

Meanwhile, the EC is facing a severe budget crisis with only Bt72 million left for the remaining seven months of the fiscal year.

“In the next fiscal year of 2017, if the EC does not get enough budget to cover costs, there will be impacts on our work,” Boonyakiati Rakchart-chroen, deputy secretary-general of the EC, said yesterday.

The budget appropriated for the EC had been insufficient to carry out its various projects.

The EC has not received funds for such personnel expenses as salary raises and provident fund contributions for its officials.

It had to rely on the unspent funds left over from holding elections, he said.

Complaints from EC staffers “went viral” after EC managers proposed cutting allowances and perks to deal with the looming financial shortfall.

The complaint letter said the move to cut provident funds, cost-of-living allowances, executive perks and |performance bonuses would erode the morale of EC officials across the country. The cut in allowances would undermine staff efficiency and loyalty to the agency.

The complaint letter also called for the removal of Surani Polthawi, the EC’s policy and planning office |director, for allegedly not having enough knowledge to manage the EC’s budget.