Thai government proposed to organize referendum on Charter changes

BANGKOK, December 8 (TNA) - Thailand’s major opposition Democrat Party has proposed that the ruling Pheu Thai Party organize a public referendum first on a plan to amend the current 2007 Constitution and then forward a report on the referendum's results to the Parliament to amend specific sections without having to create a new constitutional drafting assembly. Virat Kalayasiri, chief of the Democrat Party’s legal team, spoke of the proposal Saturday, following reports that the ruling Pheu Thai Party may opt to submit a new bill on Charter changes for a parliamentary debate, before conducting a public referendum and selecting members of the new constitutional drafting assembly to avoid being at risk of its party dissolution to be, probably, ordered by the Constitutional Court if the party insisted on submitting the present bill for the parliamentary third and final reading. The Constitution Court ruled on July 13, 2012,after the second reading of the amendment Charter bill sailed through the Parliament, that rewriting the entire 2007 Charter, written by a military-appointed panel, without a referendum would be unconstitutional. Meanwhile, Democrat Party leader Abhisit Vejjajiva acknowledged that he has assigned his party members to observe all the 108 public referendum platforms to be organized up by the government to gauge public opinions on the charter rewrite. Abhisit suggested that the Pheu Thai Pary-led coalition government listen to the earlier ruling of the Constitutional Court, ordering that public opinions be taken into consideration, and that there should not be any hidden agenda. According to the leader of the Thai opposition camp, who is a former prime minister, he agrees with some senators who have proposed that Charter amendments should be made on a section–by-section basis to ensure transparency, instead of rewriting it entirely. (TNA)