A Kangaroo Court's Monkey Trial - Dissolution is No Solution

Earlier this month, Thailand’s Constitution Court justices showed the world that it is nothing but a Kangaroo Court, a political tool of the military/amart which instated them.  Instead of interpreting the statutes fairly and reasonably, they used some creative manipulations of the language in order to issue an injunction for Parliament to suspend its vetting of the charter amendment bill.  Their only purpose it seems was to delay if not stop entirely the bill.

Now, in what appears to be a blatant attempt to partially legitimize their miserable institution, the Constitutional Court judges accepted a petition that could dissolve the Democrat Party under the same Section 68 of the 2007 Constitution using the same warped reasoning.

Of course, these judges are now digging themselves deeper in the hole of political activism and unreasonable interpretations but now they are screaming from the depths of their self-made “chasm” (some call it “judicial mining” but justice really gets the shaft) that they are at least impartial in their hearing process to both political sides. 

At the heart of this dissolution case is whether or not the Democrat Party-led government under Abhisit Vejjajiva had assumed power over the country's administration by unconstitutional methods. If the Constitution Court rules that the Democrats contravened the Constitution then it could dissolve their long-established (in deceit and corruption) political party.

So, are the Democrats being sacrificed (thrown under the yellow bus) in order to slightly improve the Constitution Court’s legitimacy?  

It’s not as if the Democrats have been real effective for the military/amart.  Abhisit squandered the power gifted to him in 2008 by the Constitution Court when they dissolved the ruling People’s Power Party and when the military strong-armed other political parties to support the Democrats.   As the incumbent party going against political third stringers (and with some of them thrown in jail to boot), the Democrats were set up to win the general election last July.  Instead, they were handily trounced.   

If the tree isn’t bearing any fruit or producing any shade then one might as well chop it down for kindling wood.  Burn, baby, burn.

Now this isn’t the first time the Democrats faced party dissolution by the Constitution Court.  In 2010, there were two charges against them.  First, for misusing 29 million baht ($907,000) allotted to the Democrats from a government fund and second, regarding failing to report a donation of 258 million baht ($8.4 million) from petrochemical conglomerate TPI.  

Some compromising videos were leaked during that time to the public showing outrageous improprieties involving several judges with regards to that case.  Nevertheless, the Constitutional Court ultimately allowed the Democrats to weasel out of these charges by pulling a technicality from out of the back end of their robes.   

But that was then, this is now. And what a difference 19 months makes.  Now the Democrats, the so-called political party of the elite, have been behaving badly recently in parliament; watching porn, physically attacking opposition MPs, saluting Hitler, etc…

In essence, the Democrat Party has been behaving like a bunch of monkeys throwing their own feces around.  

Their usefulness to the military/amart has not only come to an end but now they are an embarrassment and may need to be removed.  Has some deal with Pheu Thai been made?

Personally, I’m against the dissolution of political parties in Thailand. It was wrong to dissolve Thai Rak Thai in 2007 and the People’s Power Party in 2008 and it is wrong to dissolve the Democrat Party now.  The dissolution of political parties only weakens the democratic process – but that’s how the military/amart wants it.  It’s a whole lot easier for them to step in and have a dictatorship that appears "to save the day."

The electorate should be the ones who ultimately determine who should govern and who shouldn’t – and not some unelected jurists. The electorate have shown much better wisdom by continually, over the past 20 years, not electing the Democrats to control Parliament. This is because they know that if the Democrats control Parliament then... the Democrats control Parliament. It's as simple as that.  And who really wants a bunch of monkeys who throw their own feces around to run their country? 

Thailand’s Humpty Dumpty Court

"When I use a word," Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, "it means just what I choose it to mean – neither more nor less." "The question is," said Alice, "whether you can make words mean so many different things." "The question is," said Humpty Dumpty, "which is to be master – that’s all."
Lewis Carroll, Through the Looking Glass

It’s a Humpty Dumpty Court when seven unscrupulous judges on Thailand’s Constitutional Court had to resort to inventing a new meaning to the word “and” in a desperate effort to block the democratically elected government from changing the junta-inspired 2007 Constitution, which is the key to maintaining power for the military/elite.

You see, it’s extremely important for military/elite to not have their precious constitution tampered with. It puts elected governments suffering at the whim of the military/elite. If they don't like the government then they can easily find a pretext to remove them. Their constitution itself makes parliamentary democracy weak and vulnerable… which why they introduced it in the first place.

However, the document that was foisted on the citizens (it was illegal to campaign against the “referendum” that brought in the new constitution while the junta poured millions into the "yes" campaign) was hastily written by people who had no business writing a constitution in the first place. But the junta had the foresight to know there would be times when their document just would not “work” for them. 

That’s where the junta-installed Constitutional Court judges come in. They would be the ones to interpret the statutes to mean whatever guaranteed a so-called “victory” for their masters. And these judges have been quite busy the last five years: throwing out one prime minister for cooking on TV, throwing out his successor and dissolving their political party to allow the Democrats to obtain power, dismissing the dissolution case of the Democrat party, disqualifying a Red Shirt MP because the Democrats threw him in jail without bail and no judge would release him to vote, etc… The list goes on and is quite impressive if one believes in judicial dictatorship.

The most recent brouhaha by the Constitutional Court revolves around the first sentence in paragraph 2 of Section 68 of Thailand's Constitution which reads:

“In the case where a person or a political party has committed the act under paragraph one, the person knowing of such act shall have the right to request the Attorney General to investigate the facts and submit a motion to the Constitutional Court for ordering cessation of such act without, however, prejudice to the institution of a criminal action against such person”.

Paragraph one, by the way, reads:

"No person shall exercise the rights and liberties prescribed in the Constitution to overthrow the democratic regime of government with the King as Head of State under this Constitution or to acquire the power to rule the country by any means which is not in accordance with the modes provided in this Constitution."

Paragraph 2 is an example of how poorly the Thai constitution was drafted linguistically. Technically both "the person" and "the Attorney General" could be the subjects of the verb submit. The question is:  should the sentence be read "the person knowing of such an act shall have the right to request… and submit..." or should it be understood that "the person" has only the right to request "the Attorney General" investigate while the verb "submit" belongs to "the Attorney General"?

Of course, it doesn't make any sense at all that the person aware of "wrong-doing" must make a request to the Attorney General and submit a motion to the court. This cannot possibly be what was intended and only paste-eating morons or die-hard royalists with a political agenda to stop any change to the constitution would think otherwise.

Meechai Ruchupan           Kaewsan Atibodhi

Paste-Eating Morons or Die-Hard Royalists

(or both)

Plus, it is doubtful that the five motions filed directly to the court were accompanied by requests from the same individuals for investigations to the Attorney General. So, in order to fix this and allow them to act, the judges changed the meaning of the word "and" to "either/or" effectively making the sentence read:

"In the case where a person or a political party has committed the act under paragraph one, the person knowing of such act shall have the right to either request the Attorney General to investigate the facts or submit a motion to the Constitutional Court for ordering cessation of such act without, however, prejudice to the institution of a criminal action against such person." 

But there’s another creative interpretation by these judges in that they view Parliament as "a person or political party". Of course, Parliament is obviously not regarded as "a person or political party" nor should they be. The Parliament is authorized by Section 291 of the Constitution to undertake charter amendment legislation.

Of course judicial decisions are supposed to be made based on the laws and precedents. However, these judges have thrown precedent out the window too as Kaewmala at Siam Voices points out:

“In May 2006, the Constitution Court rejected a petition by a former MP submitted under the same section in the previous constitution on the basis that Section 63 (which became Section 68 in the current constitution, containing the same text) did not allow the complainant to directly submit the petition to the Constitution Court. The Court then ruled that the petition must first be considered by the Attorney General. The rejected petition in 2006 was filed to request the Court to disband the Democrat Party.”

Judges take oaths to support the law as it is and not as they might prefer it to be. The bad eggs at the Constitutional court have substituted their own fascist opinions and ideas for the laws and precedents upon which judicial decisions are supposed to be made and are headed for a great fall; a fall so great that, like Humpty Dumpty, all the king’s horses and all the king’s men won’t be able to put them back together again.

I say it’s high time to ‘break a few eggs’.  Figuratively not literally; no violence please - just impeach the bums.

Just as I suspected – there’s a whole lot of slimy yellow inside these eggs.

Celebrating Royalty - American Style

I’d like to present a couple of funny little videos which illustrate some feelings we have toward the British monarchy.

The first video is from this past Monday's "The Daily Show" with John Stewart. Stewart doesn't seem to be impressed by the Queen's jubilee celebration. 

T

The next video is from "The Colbert Report" with Stephen Colbert. This clip aired about a year ago just prior to the royal wedding in London.  Colbert enlists a royalist Englishman to help him prepare to meet the Queen. 

Some would say that Americans should be more respectful of the beliefs and traditions of other countries.  That may be true to some extent but not with respect to monarchies.

Before our Constitution and before our Declaration of Independence, there was Thomas Paine’s “Common Sense.” That was the pamphlet -- widely circulated in the colonies in early 1776, that convinced our forebears that they should declare independence.  Paine, a recent immigrant from England and the most radical and most working-class of the Founding Fathers, is scathing and brilliant in his denunciation of the British monarchy.  Read it and remind yourselves why Americans are all supposed to be republicans (small "r"), meaning foes of royalists.

Truth and Justice Before Reconciliation

It was an atrocity that 92 people died and thousands were injured in bloody incidents during Thailand’s pro-democracy demonstration in 2010.

And it is another atrocity that justice has not been delivered yet and so far, not a single government official has been prosecuted for those deaths and injuries.  What's worse is that there are signs that amnesty will be granted to those involved.

It will be a true betrayal of the victims if their right to truth and justice is sacrificed for the sake of reconciliation.  No amnesty should be granted before the truth comes out and before those responsible for the deaths and injuries are prosecuted.

The Thai Democrat Party: Porn Loving Nazi Murderers

In the past few months some Democrat Party Ministers of Parliament in Thailand have shown the true colors of their political organization and have demonstrated why they haven’t won a national election in over 20 years. 

Just last month during a session in Parliament, an image of a naked woman in a provocative pose flashed across the giant monitors.

Porn in the Parliament

According to a Bangkok Post report on 24 April, speculation is that a mobile or portable device transmitted the image via the WiFi system from within building.

And who was caught watching pornography in Parliament that day on his iPhone?  None other than Democrat Party MP Nat Bantadtan, son of Democrat party-list MP and executive Banyat Bantadtan. 

Democrat Party MP Nat Bantadtan

Then, if that type of behavior wasn’t bad enough, on May 2^nd during another session in Parliament debate Democrat Party MP Boonyod Sukthinthai gave the Nazi salute screamed “Heil Hitler” at the top of his lungs on the House floor. 

Ironically, Greece just elected 21 members of the neo-Nazi Golden Dawn party to their parliament. Golden Dawn activists often salute like Hitler and want landmines planted on the Greek borders to fend off illegal immigrants. They, like their Democrat Party counterparts in Thailand often deny their neo-Nazi label.  

Then there is the ongoing saga of Democrat Party MP Khanchit Thapsuwan.

Democrat Party MP Khanchit Thapsuwan

The Samut Sakhon Court on Dec 26 last year issued a warrant for the arrest of Mr Khanchit in connection with the murder of Provincial Administration Organization chairman Udon Kraiwatnussorn, who was shot dead at a petrol station in Muang district of Samut Sakhon on Dec 25.

Porn Loving Nazi Murderers indeed! I can’t think of a more appropriate leader of the Democrat Party than someone like Abhisit Vejjajiva, who had innocent people killed in cold blood so that he could stay as Prime Minister for a few months longer.

Abhisit Vejjajiva

And I can’t think of a more appropriate deputy spokeswoman for the Thai Democrat Party than Mallika Boonmeetrakul, who wants the government to totally close down all social networking sites, including Facebook, YouTube and Twitter. 

Mallika Boonmeetrakul