Court rejects petition to disband 3 parties over their stance on deep South
The Constitutional Court rejected a petition that sought the dissolution of three political parties — Move Forward, Prachachat, and Fair — for allegedly attempting to overthrow the democratic system of government by supporting the breakup of southern region into an independent state.
A former adviser to the Ombudsman, Nattaporn Toprayoon, submitted a petition to the Constitutional Court on September 5, requesting the court to look into the involvement of the members of three political parties in the student-activist movement, known as "Pelajar Bangsa”.
The student movement had organised a referendum vote during a seminar at Prince of Songkla University to seek the separation of the deep South provinces of Yala, Pattani and Narathiwat and four districts in Songkhla from Thailand.
Nattaporn contended that the three parties’ members had violated Section 49 of the current Constitution which says that “no person shall exercise the rights or liberties to overthrow the democratic system of government with the King as head of state”.
Citing Section 92 of the charter, he urged the court to disband the Move Forward, Prachachat, and Fair parties and revoke their members' eligibility to run for election.
The former state official also accused Thanathorn Juangroongruangkit, the leader of the dissolved Future Forward party (Move Forward’s predecessor) of allying with the extremist Barisan Revolusi Nasional group.
The Constitutional Court on Monday dismissed Nattaporn’s petition, saying the document that Nattaporn had provided failed to include any information that would show the three respondents' involvement in any move to overthrow the democratic system of government with the King as head of state.
“The court opted not to accept the petition for further hearing,” a document published by the court showed.
Thailand's deep South region has been hit by insurgency for decades, leaving many thousands dead.
