Thai Civil Court to rule on legality of executive decree Feb 19

BANGKOK, February 17 (TNA) - Bangkok's Civil Court will, on February 19, rule on the legality of the executive decree, which has been imposed for 60 days in all areas in Bangkok and some areas in peripheral provinces since January 22, as petitioned by a leading member of the Democrat Party. The government-run Center for Maintaining Peace and Order (CMPO) sent its closing statement on the case to the Civil Court on Monday. In the case, a protest leader of the anti-government People's Democratic Reform Committee (PDRC), Thaworn Senneam, asked the Civil Court to stop the enforcement of the emergency decree, but the CMPO argued that the caretaker government has authority to exercise the law. Tharit Pengdit, Director-General of the Department of Special Investigation (DSI), in his capacity as a CMPO member, said the CMPO informed the Civil Court in the closing statement that Caretaker Prime Minister and Defence Minister Yingluck Shinawatra and her Cabinet have authority to exercise the emergency decree, and that the Civil Court ruled in favor of the exercise of the special law by the previous Abhisit Vejjajiva government in 2010. According to the DSI chief, the CMPO will also try to expel anti-government protesters from five locations in Bangkok, namely Government House, the Central Government Complex on Chaeng Watthana Road, the Democracy Monument, the Ministry of Energy and the Ministry of Interior, to reopen government offices. So far, 48 government offices seized earlier by the protesters have been reopened. Meanwhile, Police General Aek Angsananont, Deputy National Police Chief, told reporters that a grenade fired at the 7th floor of the Criminal Court in the capital early last Saturday morning might be linked with a similar attack at demonstrators at the Ministry of Energy because they were armor-piercing grenades. Police General Aek revealed that police had gathered important clues which should lead to a gunman who had recently used a machine gun to attack the house of Pramon Sutivong, Chairman of the Anti-Corruption Network.(TNA)