Bangkok Post

Pheu Thai Party spokesman Prompong Nopparit said the party was concerned that if the court rules against the two decrees, the opposition Democrat Party would take advantage of the ruling to discredit the government and pressure Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra into resigning.

The court is due to rule Wednesday on the legality of the decrees.

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If the decrees are ruled to be unconstitutional, the government's recourse will be to resubmit them as bills for parliamentary endorsement, which will probably delay the government's flood prevention projects, Mr Prompong said.

However, the government will respect the court's decision whichever way it goes, he said.

The Democrats and a group of 69 senators have petitioned the court to rule whether the decrees issued as part of the government's flood management spending plans violate the constitution.

Section 184 of the constitution stipulates that an executive decree can be issued only for urgent matters but the government's financial plans were not that urgent, they argued.

One decree authorises the government to borrow 350 billion baht to finance water management projects and flood rehabilitation work.

The other is to allow the Finance Ministry to transfer repayment responsibility for 1.14 trillion baht in bailout debt from the 1997 crisis from the annual budget to the Financial Institutions Development Fund.

The decrees were among four executive decrees approved by the cabinet on Jan 10.

The other two decrees sought to set up a 50 billion baht fund to provide flood insurance for investors and to amend central bank regulations to allow it to extend 300 billion baht in soft loans to financial institutions.

They are aimed at rebuilding the country and preventing a recurrence of last year's floods.

Pheu Thai MP for Nan Cholnan Srikaew said the party's legal team has a back-up plan in the event the court rules against the decrees.

It would change the decrees into bills and push for their passage through parliament, which would take up to three months.

Mr Cholnan admitted the government would suffer humiliation if both the decrees or one of them do not clear the court. But such a loss of face would not rock the government's stability, he said, adding the decrees were necessary to address urgent problems in the country.

A Pheu Thai source said the party's legal team did not believe the court would rule in favour of the government as the court is likely to give weight to the requirement of urgent need as stipulated in Section 184 of the constitution.

However, the source said PM Yingluck and Deputy Prime Minister Kittiratt Na-Ranong would not need to quit to take responsibility if the government loses in court.

They will have to resign only if the government's financial bills fail to receive parliamentary endorsement, the source said, adding the constitution obviously authorises the executive branch to issue executive decrees.

Another source said the decree to shift the repayment responsibility for 1.14 trillion baht in bailout debt is likely to be rejected by the court, given that it did not meet the urgent needs requirement.

Opposition chief whip Jurin Laksanavisit said Tuesday that if the decrees are ruled to be unconstitutional, the government must take responsibility.

The government's failure to take responsibility would set a bad example for future governments to do the same and get away with it without parliamentary scrutiny while the legislative branch would be reduced to a rubber-stamp parliament, Mr Jurin said.

Pimol Thampitakpong, a spokesman for the Constitution Court, said yesterday at least six out of nine votes of the nine members of the charter court's judge panel would be required for a ruling that an executive decree is in violation of the constitution.