Quote:Court lists numerous faults in the draft charter

The Supreme Administrative Court yesterday finalised its critique of the constitution draft, highlighting a wide range of issues to factor in for the draft's revision.

The idea to form a crisis panel to deal with unforeseen problems beyond the scope of existing mechanisms should be dropped, the court said, arguing it sees no justification to politicise the courts.

On the allocation of 400 House seats, the court opposed fixing the number of seats as the charter might have to be amended endlessly in light of population growth.

For multi-seat constituencies, the court said this voting system might favour candidates and parties with large campaign war chests. Candi-dates with limited funds would be at a disadvantage in a large constituency. The court opposed a provision requiring MP candidates to have a party affiliation, saying independents should be given a chance to run.

As to an appointed Senate, it said the senators should have no right to dispense broad powers to censure an elected government or to supervise independent office holders and judges.

The court found it unreasonable to allow MPs to censure the government even if they could not muster enough support to file the motion to launch the debate two years after taking office. This could mean granting a blank cheque to destabilise the government, it said.

The proposed cap on a premier serving no more than two terms, or eight years, should be dropped because there was no such precedent in the parliamentary system.

The draft provision giving immunity to every organisation involved in the September coup should be cut because precedents show that the elected parliament would deal with the issue in due course.

Meanwhile, the Supreme Court echoed many opinions aired by the high court, including opposition to the crisis panel.

The National Counter Corrup-tion Commission agreed with the two high courts' opposition to the crisis panel.

TheNation