People are ignoring the draft charter’s focus on the rights and welfare of citizens and unfairly emphasising political parts of the document, Constitution Drafting Committee chairman Borwornsak Uwanno has said.
“The most common words across 200 sections of the draft charter are ‘rights’ and ‘citizens,’ ” he told a public seminar on the charter in Khon Kaen yesterday. “But no one talks about those sections. All that is discussed are the 15 to 20 sections on politics.”
Mr Borwornsak said the draft charter provides the groundwork for increasing public participation in fighting graft, while offering unprecedented assistance to the underprivileged through the proposed Labour Bank and National Pension Fund. But these measures are receiving little public attention.
“If anyone wishes to limit the rights of citizens, it’ll be over our dead bodies,” he said.
The CDC chairman’s remarks came amid growing opposition to specific sections of the draft, particularly the proposal that says the future prime minister would not have to be an MP. Many former MPs have spoken out against the idea.
Lawan Ngamchuen, head of the Community Council Network for 20 northeastern provinces, told the seminar that large local administration organisations should be scrapped and replaced with structures that allow freedom to manage grassroots affairs.
CDC member Paiboon Nititawan urged National Reform Council members not to try and amend the interim constitution so they can remain in office should they reject the draft charter.
The interim charter states the NRC and CDC must be dissolved if the council votes to drop the draft charter. The drafting process would go back to square one, and no one from either body could be reappointed.
But observers have warned NRC members might shoot down the draft and to try and keep their seats.
Mr Paiboon, who also sits on the NRC, said the ban on the reappointment of CDC and NRC members forms a core principle of the interim charter which must be respected. The interim charter should only be amended to allow for a referendum on the draft charter, he said.
Direk Thuengfang, chairman of the NRC sub-panel on the charter, said several elements of the draft need rewriting. The clause on having a non-MP as prime minister should be removed to defuse a looming national crisis, he said.