Ombudsmen’s call on charter court to suspend PM vote on Thursday may be rejected: ex-judge
A former Constitutional Court judge said the charter court has no authority to interfere in parliamentary affairs and cannot call on Parliament to suspend the PM vote on Thursday.
Jaran Phakdeethanakul, a former charter court judge, was referring on Tuesday to the ombudsmen’s petition for the Constitutional Court to rule on lawmakers allegedly violating the charter last week by giving priority to Parliament meeting regulations over the charter.
On Monday, the ombudsmen asked the charter court to invalidate the Parliament’s decision to block the renomination of Move Forward PM candidate Pita Limjaroenrat as well as suspend the PM vote on Thursday until a ruling is issued.
Jaran said the ombudsmen had the right to invoke Articles 46 and 48 of the Constitution to seek a ruling from the charter court and it was good that they had carried out their duty.
However, he said, he had studied the two articles closely and found that neither of these articles nor any other part of the Constitution gave the Constitutional Court power over the Parliament.
He said the Parliament is another branch of the country’s sovereignty and is independent of the executive and judicial branches.
As a result, Jaran said the Constitutional Court might reject the ombudsmen’s petition immediately as it has done with other cases that it considered to be beyond its power.
Jaran explained that the charter court cannot review the ombudsmen’s petition for several reasons.
Firstly, parliamentarians are not state officials as referred to in Article 47. The article gives the ombudsmen the right to seek rulings from the Constitutional Court in cases they believe state officials have violated peoples’ rights and liberties.
Jaran said judges, MPs and senators are not state officials in the Thai legal system. Instead, judges and parliamentarians are considered executors of the judicial and legislative branches of sovereign power. As a result, Jaran said, the Constitutional Court cannot interfere in parliamentary affairs.
The ombudsmen also invoked Article 48 to seek a court ruling to settle the conflict over parliamentary meeting regulations and the charter.
However, Jaran said, legal disputes that the Constitutional Court can accept for review must be related to laws, not regulations.
Disputes over laws that are lower in status than acts should be considered by the Central Administrative Court.
Again, the Administrative Court has no authority to check policy-level works of the Cabinet and Parliament, Jaran said.
Since the parliamentary meeting regulation is not a full-blown law, the Constitutional Court can reject the ombudsmen’s petition immediately, Jaran added.
He said the minority is the only side that can conduct checks and balances in Parliament.
However, the minority may be accused by the majority of severely violating the ethics of parliamentarians, and a petition may be filed against it with the Supreme Court’s Criminal Division for Political Office Holders, he concluded.
