Meanwhile, Kerdchoke Kasamwongjit, deputy director-general of the Rights and Liberties Protection Department, said at the Foreign Correspondents’ Club of Thailand on Monday that the Life Partnership Bill has been revised as per the Cabinet’s suggestions and submitted to the Justice Ministry on Friday.

Though details of the changes were not revealed, Kerdchoke said the Justice Ministry will look at the draft and return it to the Cabinet this month before it goes to the National Legislative Assembly.

However, Kittinun Daramadhaj, president of the Rainbow Sky Association of Thailand, said that even though the Life Partnership Bill is becoming law, it cannot be considered a success, because LGBTQI couples will not have the same rights as straight married couples.

Conservative ideas

“Due to the Cabinet, the NLA and Thai authorities’ conservative views, I doubt if their version of the Life Partnership Bill will guarantee LGBTQI [lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans, queer and intersex] couples the same rights as straight couples. I doubt if LGBTQI couples will have the right to adopt or surrogate a child, be given tax benefits or the right to receive the spouse’s welfare or pension,” Kittinun said.

Hence, he said, LGBTQI groups were now working together to push on three fronts to achieve their goal of allowing all citizens to marry and create a family, as well as get equal rights and benefits from their marriage.

Kittinun said the first option, which has the highest chance of success, would be to fight for equal rights through the Life Partnership Bill.

“We all accept that despite the bill’s imperfections, it allows people to seek amendments both before and after the bill becomes law,” he said.

“Though LGBTQI and straight couples get married using two different laws, if these laws are exactly the same and can guarantee the same rights and benefits to everybody, then I see no problems with it.”

The other option, he said, is to push for an amendment to the Civil Code, so it allows two individuals to marry regardless of their gender.

“The first choice would be to collect 10,000 signatures and propose for the Civil Code to be amended, while the second would be to use the power of the Gender Equality Act and file a complaint about discrimination against LGBTQI couples with the Ombudsman.

This way, the Ombudsman can take this issue to the Constitutional Court to get the Civil Code amended,” he said.

However, he said the third option is the riskiest as the court could very well point out that the marriage law in the Civil Code does not violate the gender equality principle that is enshrined in the Constitution.

A CRUCIAL bill to prevent torture and enforced disappearance will soon enter the legislative process.

The National Legislative Assembly (NLA) is expected to consider this bill on December 20.

File photo: Pholachi “Billy” Rakchongcharoen

Rights activists have hailed the draft law as the best tool to date to deter torture and enforced disappearance. Prominent lawyer Somchai Neelapaijit, Karen-ethnic activist Pholachi “Billy” Rakchongcharoen and villager-turned-activist Den Khamlae are among those who disappeared mysteriously.

According to Amnesty Thailand, at least 59 human-rights defenders have been victims of enforced disappearance during the past two decades.

“It’s good that the bill seeks to criminalise torture and enforced disappearance in all circumstances, including during wars and political unrest,” Cross Cultural Foundation director Pornpen Khongkachonkiet said yesterday.

The director-general of the Rights and Liberties Protection Department (RLPD), Somn Promaros, said the bill would also impose punishments against a direct supervisor who was aware of but failed to stop his/her subordinates from carrying out torture or enforced disappearance.

“Penalties are a jail term of between five and 25 years, and/or a fine of between Bt100,000 and Bt300,000,” he said.

He added that the punishments would increase if the victims were pregnant women, dependent persons or physically challenged.

“There are clauses for remedial actions for the victims, too,” he said.

According to the draft law, the Department of Special Investigation (DSI) will be in charge of investigating cases of enforced disappearance and torture. Only in events where DSI officials are accused of such crimes will police be assigned to investigate.

Somn said the NLA whip had already approved the bill.

“On December 11, the whip will study the bill further and will forward it to the NLA,” he added.

Somn said if the bill was turned into a law, every government agency involved in restrictions of people’s rights would have to compile a database of people subjected to restricted rights.

“Such an agency would also be required to outline measures to stop torture, once detected, and provide remedy,” he explained.

Pornpen said the Justice Ministry and several lawyers were behind this draft law.

“It has been prepared based on the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment and the Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance,” she said.

Pornpen said the bill was very modern, and appreciated the fact that the bill would also bar Thailand from deporting any person who was at risk of enforced disappearance and torture.

She said after the bill becomes law, the number of enforced-disappearance and torture cases in Thailand should see a reduction.

“I believe supervisors will keep a closer watch on their subordinates,” she said.

When the bill becomes law, a committee on the prevention of enforced disappearance and torture will be established, chaired by the justice minister. Committee members will include human-rights defenders, doctors and psychologists.

IT IS important for people to make small changes in their daily lives in order to cut down on the huge amount of plastic waste being generated, according to experts involved in fighting the menace.

Thailand faces serious problems caused by plastic pollution. The country produces more than 2 million tonnes of plastic waste per year and ranks sixth among countries with the largest amount of mismanaged plastic waste.

Photo from: Tesco Lotus Community 

Public officials from the public sector and academics pointed out on Thai Environment Day yesterday that the problem of plastic pollution can be solved through behaviour adjustment and active participation by everyone, along with the proper policy support from the authorities.

Natural Resources and Environment Minister General Surasak Karnjanarat said plastic waste pollution is one of the biggest problems facing Thailand. Thai people throw away some 45 billion single-use plastic bags per year, which amounts to about 12 per cent of overall household waste nationwide.

Surasak said the government was focused on seriously addressing the problem. The Public Health Ministry have stopped distributing plastic bags in every public hospital since October, while the National Park, Wildlife and Plant Conservation Department is also planning to ban plastic bags in all 154 national parks across the country.

Photo from: Tesco Lotus Community 

He said many supermarkets and department stores across Thailand have also joined the government campaign to voluntarily refrain from distributing plastic bags on the national Environment Day.

However, despite their promises, most shops were found to be still providing their customers with plastic bags.

Jiaranai Vithidkul, a PhD student at Chulalongkorn University, said she has been avoiding plastic bags for a long time and this environmentally friendly behaviour was not as difficult as many people thought it to be.

“People usually think that giving up the use of plastic bags and adopting a low-waste lifestyle is too radical. But from my experience, I can say that there are many easy ways that urbanites like us can avoid producing unnecessary waste,” Jiaranai said.

“For example, I usually take an extra fabric bag with me all the time to carry shopping items instead of asking for a plastic bag, and when I have lunch at the university canteen, I always use stainless steel spoons and forks to eat noodles instead of single-use chopsticks.”

She said these little adjustments that she made in her daily life were very easy and if many people did the same, the outcome would be really big, as the production of a large amount of waste can be avoided.

However, she admitted that the hardest part of changing habits for a greener lifestyle was the addiction to the convenience of plastic.

“I admit that plastic makes our lives much easier and provides convenience. As we have got used to this convenience for quite a long time, it has made us feel that we cannot do without plastic, even |though before the invention of plastic we could live perfectly well without it,” Jiaranai said.

As many people still think that it is very hard and inconvenient to change their habits, she suggests that the best way to reduce plastic waste in daily life is to start with small things and go step by step.

“To stop using plastic bags at once is an unsustainable way of changing one’s habit. Everyone should find their own way to lower waste generation in their daily lives, so it suits their lifestyle,” she said.

“If you find the most suitable way for you, it will be very easy to practice and make it your new habit.”

Meanwhile, Asst Professor Pracha Khunnathamdee, a lecturer at Thammasat School of Economics, suggested that state policies to reduce plastic bag usage are not enough to tackle the country’s plastic waste problem.

Pracha pointed out that governmental support for biodegradable plastic and alternative material for goods packaging are also important to make their cost cheaper and promote them as a replacement for plastic with environmentally less-harmful materials.

THE CABINET yesterday gave the green light to all government ministries to prepare projects considered “New Year presents” to the people.

However, Government Spokesman Puttipong Punnakanta insisted that the seasonal gifts were not politically motivated or aimed at wooing public support in the run-up to the election.

He said the projects by different ministries, which will go into effect for the New Year, are part of their “routine activities” at this time of year.

The projects will include handouts to the poor, extra money for the elderly, an income-tax deduction and subsidies for rubber and palm-tree growers.

“The New Year presents are part of the government policy of helping people. They are normal projects that require an ordinary budget. There is nothing political, even though this time it is close to the election,” Puttipong said at Government House.

“These are normal activities by the ministries that they prepare for the people. There’s nothing special,” he said.

“For example, the Finance Ministry has a project to help the poor in order to stimulate the economy and help reduce the burden on people. The budget was allocated long ago, and not recently,” the spokesman added.

‘No aim to gain political support’

He said the projects were really aimed at helping the beneficiaries in the short term, with no intention of gaining political support.

“Those projects would still have been implemented even if the election had not been held at this time,” Puttipong said.

At its weekly meeting yesterday, the Cabinet endorsed a proposed Finance Ministry regulation that includes three types of goods as items eligible for income-tax deduction.

The goods are tyres made from locally grown rubber, OTOP products, and books (both in paper and electronic forms).

To become eligible for a tax deduction, which is limited to no more than Bt15,000, income-tax payers must purchase these goods between December 15 and January 16, 2019.

The ministry’s Revenue Department has proposed the revised regulation as part of a tax measure aimed at helping farmers, community residents and consumers of necessary goods such as books, said the department’s spokesman, Pinsai Suraswadi, yesterday.

He said the tax measure is expected to help rubber farmers and communities producing local goods, and also encourage more reading.

The amendment, which won 139 nods from the 240-member NLA, will require banks and other financial institutions to report money transfers worth more than Bt2 million per recipient per year to tax authorities.

Deputy Finance Minister Wisut Srisuphan said the amendments will help the Revenue Department collect taxes for goods and services sold online, as sellers have been evading tax payment due to the use of electronic money transfers.

According to the amended Revenue Code, banks have to report transfers totalling more than 400 transactions and worth over Bt2 million per year per recipient to the Revenue Department so authorities can investigate to see if these vendors paid taxes properly.

The Revenue Department had found it difficult to levy income and other taxes on e-commerce sites and online vendors due to a lack of information.

Most online vendors are individuals with no physical outlets, who sell their products via social and digital platforms. Buyers generally transfer money for the goods via banks’ electronic payment service, so authorities cannot foll ow up on tax collection.

Wisut said the amendments will make tax collection more efficient and help bring small and medium-sized enterprises into the tax system, as many of them are also relying on social and e-commerce platforms.

According to the Revenue Department’s data, Thailand has 10.7 million citizens aged 30-39, of which 8.2 million are salaried workers, while the rest are self-employed. However, a large number of the self-employed do not pay taxes.

Thailand also has some 640,000 enterprises registered as juristic persons, of which only about 420,000 have filed tax returns.

The amended Revenue Code will help the authorities collect taxes from this sector too.

However, some NLA members voiced opposition to the amendments, citing potential negative effects on other people, including NLA members who themselves receive their meeting allowances via bank transfers.

Voraphol Sokatiyanuluk, an NLA member, said there were already other laws that empowered the Revenue Department to investigate tax evaders, so this amendment was unnecessary.

Also, he said, this requirement will put an additional burden on financial institutions, as they will have to report transactions to the authorities.

He too cited NLA members among those who will be affected by the amendments, since many receive hundreds of bank transfers every year, including meeting allowances, and they pay their taxes properly.

Another NLA member, Tuang Anthachai, pointed out that many donations for Buddhist temples are transferred via people’s bank accounts, so organisers will face problems due to these amendments.

In response to some of the concerns, the amendment was changed to 400 transactions per recipient per year instead of 200 as proposed earlier.

The family claimed an amendment to the city law had been illegally implemented in favour of nearby street vendors but the court ruled that the city had applied legal and appropriate discretion and followed due process.

The amendment, which was published in the Royal Gazette on July 29, 2016, was introduced following public requests to bring the law more into line with prevailing social and economic condition, urban development and population expansion, the court said.

After hearing the verdict, Rattanachat Saengyoktrakarn declared that she and sisters had done all they could to protect their rights as dutiful citizens.

She also pointed out that, although the city had won on this occasion, the court ruling still protected people’s rights and opened the way for them to sue if their rights were violated in the Seri Villa housing estate in Bangkok’s Prawet district.

Rattanachat and her sisters filed the lawsuit to try to persuade the court to revoke the city’s amendment relating to new developments. The family claimed the amendment had been issued illegitimately and was being used to back the “illegal” markets’ in their neighbourhood, causing trouble to residents near the Suan Luang Rama IX Park.

The family claimed that the maximum height for commercial buildings had been increased to 45 metres to make life easier for commercial buildings, shophouses and markets.

However, the court said the amendment had not altered the maximum height allowed for commercial buildings in Zone 1, where the sisters live, and it remained at 15m there.

The court said the amendment was to resize the construction control zone to cover a 300-metre radius from the park territory within Zone 1 – originally reserved for single houses – to cover more housing types, including apartment buildings.

The ruling also said that the structures and land use there must still adhere to related laws as well as the information on the land title deeds, the land allocation’s attached contract and the housing estate plan.

Rattanachat said the city shouldn’t have used this amended law to back the markets’ existence and Zone 1, which had been a restricted development area for more than 30 years, should not be changed on the grounds of urban development.

She said the ruling still provided some protection to the residents as it said the space use must adhere to related laws.

“But people still cannot drop their guards because issues at Seri Villa stemmed from people breaking the law or using loopholes in the law so residents around the park must be vigilant to check on the BMA actions in case they are not within the law or violate people’s rights,” she said.

“Don’t ignore it, we have to step forward to protect our rights or we all will suffer forever.”

See VDO clip

Last month in a previous post from India, Chris Hemsworth was seen in his car trying to deal with the traffic of Ahmedabad.

Suitably amazed, the Australian actor and Marvel’s cinematic universe “Thor” is heard saying “beautiful chaos”.

Unfortunately, when arriving in Bangkok, the Norse god was nowhere near as enchanted by our capital’s traffic.

Judging from what is in the YouTube video of his experience, it’s easy to say that everyone living in Thailand, and especially Bangkok, can relate to this A-list movie star.

Hemsworth is currently filming a new Netflix movie, “Dhaka”, in which he plays a mercenary hired to extract a kidnapped businessman.

No release date has yet been set.

At The Mall Nakhon Ratchasima branch, a banner went up to remind shoppers that it would not be providing plastic bags for one day.

Customers, however, could get nice fabric bags featuring Walt Disney characters instead.

Some customers turned up at the shopping complex with their own fabric bags because they were aware it was “Thai Environment Day”.

Staff at the mall said customers were also allowed to borrow fabric bags if they wanted to buy anything.

At 7-Eleven outlets, customers still got plastic bags as usual, though.

“By the way, we asked first if customers wanted a bag. If they needed one, we were obliged to provide it,” a 7-Eleven staff member said.

Some customers willingly forgo the right to get plastic bags, she added.