Thai court rules Prime Minister violated charter with cooking show

BANGKOK: Thailand's Constitution Court ruled on Tuesday that Prime Minister Samak Sundaravej must step down after he violated the country's supreme law by accepting payments for hosting TV cooking programmes while in office.

MCOT

Interesting isn't it. Iif you are the PM and received any type renumeration you are an employee. What if the PM accepts a glass of water on the interview set of CNN will the constitution court disallow him as a CNN employee? Did I mention the Constitution Court used their own very loose version of the term employee in their verdict not the one set out in the Organic Laws of Thailand.

On the same day the courts released the leader of the NBT break in. Makes me wonder about the universal application of the law in Thailand.

(09-09-2008 04:52 PM)lukamar Wrote:  Interesting isn't it. Iif you are the PM and received any type renumeration you are an employee. What if the PM accepts a glass of water on the interview set of CNN will the constitution court disallow him as a CNN employee? Did I mention the Constitution Court used their own very loose version of the term employee in their verdict not the one set out in the Organic Laws of Thailand.

If you followed the case you might expect Samak to go to the slammer for perjury. He said in court (probably under oath) that he was only reimbursed his expenses for travelling until the written receipts were presented that he did actually sign for having received 80,000 Baht for those two shows. Maybe he didn't wear any glasses and thought he just signed for a glass of water. He also said he'd given the renumeration to his driver. I hope he's not driving up taxi fees with assertions like that.

Notorious liars as PMs shouldn't be the standard! But lying about history, payments received etc. seems to be normal for Samak.

I wasn't talking about Samak as much as the constitution and it's application. Under the newest constitution a glass of water could be construed as renumeration and thus disallow the PM. The intent of the constitution is good, to stop conflict of interest with big business, but it creates a huge problem when it comes to application because it is just too general in nature. Also the court used it's own very loose definition of an employee rather than the already accepted definition in the Organic law was a bit strange. No legal advice anyone could get could protect them if the court makes up their own definitions.

The section was setup so that the PM could not be put in a conflict of interest. Cooking Tom Yum or making Somtam on TV, paid or not, is not applying the constitution as it was intended. There in lies the problem with the new constitution, I have always said that the Peoples constitution should have been amended and I still do. I would like to see the constitution rolled back and a committee that encompasses all the voting public, rural poor included, draw up the changes. You can't have a special interest group do it, be that group the military or the government. If rolling back the constitution to the 97 one lets Thaksin off the hook or the PPP or the PAD so be it in the end it would be in the best interest of Thailand. Having constant Constitutional challenges as we have now, with sometimes strange outcomes because of the application, is akin to not having a constitution at all.