The Constitution Drafting Committee wants more oversight of independent bodies assigned to scrutinise private companies and political office holders.
Under a new proposal, members of the independent agencies would be required to declare their assets and liabilities.
The CDC on Saturday began deliberating proposed charter provisions relating to scrutiny of the exercise of state powers.
The proposals were put forward by a charter-drafting subcommittee led by CDC member Paiboon Nititawan.
Part of the scrutiny proposal, however, sparked off more than an hour of heated debate among the charter drafters amid concern it could be interpreted to apply to executives of private companies which do business with the state.
They said this would result in huge numbers of people being scrutinised and would create an overload of work for agencies tasked with assets scrutiny, affecting their efficiency and creating the possibility that senior politicians could then "slip through the net".
The proposal would require courts and independent bodies responsible for scrutinising the exercise of state powers to declare their assets, liabilities and tax payments dating back five years. This is different from the previous 2007 charter which sought only to scrutinise the prime minister, cabinet ministers, MPs, senators, other political office holders, and members of local administrative bodies.
The CDC meeting eventually agreed that the proposal needed revision and will discuss it again tomorrow.
The meeting concluded that some of the proposals should be included in other relevant laws instead, and that specific details should be given on the declarations of assets and liabilities of executives of private companies which are awarded state contracts.
Members at the meeting agreed that minimum requirements must be set on the value of the contracts awarded to companies.
Some CDC members noted that agencies tasked with assets scrutiny would be left with too much work if they have to scrutinise the assets of executives of all companies, some of which win only small state contracts worth less than one million baht.
Mr Paiboon said yesterday the proposal was based on Section 35 of the interim constitution which calls for effective mechanisms to be devised to scrutinise and prevent those convicted of corruption from taking political office.
However, Mr Paiboon said he accepted the CDC's reservations about the proposal, and that changes will be made to the proposal and the requirements for those who are to declare their assets will be proposed for inclusion in other relevant laws, such as the National Anti-Corruption Law.
The CDC yesterday also discussed a proposal on the impeachment of political office holders under the new charter.
The meeting agreed that proceedings will apply to both active public office holders and those who vacate office. Impeachment would require support of more than half of the members of a joint House-
Senate session.
In the event politicians impeached survive the impeachment motion, they would remain on an “impeachment list” and at the next election their names would appear in a special section of the ballot papers to allow voters to decide whether to impeach them.
However, several CDC members still did not agree on a proposal that if politicians targeted for impeachment resigned from their positions within seven days, they will be spared from impeachment.
Some members argued that approving this proposal would lower impeachment standards.
The meeting agreed to suspend discussion of the issue until a later date.