It will be up to the Constitution Drafting Committee (CDC) to decide if the new draft charter should ban for life politicians found guilty of corruption and strip them of their electoral rights, Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha says.
He was responding on Tuesday to a question involving a proposal by Privy Council member and former premier Tanin Kraivixien who recently sent a letter to Gen Prayut offering suggestions about reforms on several issues including corruption.
Gen Prayut said he had forwarded Mr Tanin's suggestions to the CDC led by Meechai Ruchupan which would consider whether a lifetime ban should be imposed on corrupt politicians.
He said the charter writers will study laws in other countries and international laws to investigate such measures. Thailand is a member of several international anti-corruption organisations.
"We are members of several counter-corruption bodies and we should study their stance on this," Gen Prayut said.
However, Gen Prayut said whatever the charter drafters decide, the public will get to vote on it when the final version of the draft constitution goes to a referendum.
In his letter to Gen Prayut, Mr Tanin said the fight against corruption has been a failure because politicians who are barred from politics for five years are allowed to return.
Mr Tanin proposed that these people should not be given a second chance even if they performed good deeds for the betterment of the country.
He also suggested that changes be made to extradition laws to enable the state to seize assets of corrupt politicians even if they are stashed abroad.
Gen Prayut said he also asked the CDC, the National Reform Steering Assembly and the National Legislative Assembly to coordinate so their work is steered in the same direction.
"If they work together, we can answer the questions in one go," he said.
Gen Prayut also said there was no need to ask any of the coup-appointed bodies to speed up their work, pointing out they all would work in accordance with the roadmap.
He shrugged off criticism that the CDC might not be able to meet the demands of the people, saying that part of the CDC's job was to gather input and listen to feedback.
Meanwhile, Mr Meechai said the CDC would consider proposals on the election system next Monday.
He promised that the new election system would be as simple as possible.
"We will simplify the election system. There is no need to use maths experts to do the calculating. We will come up with a simple method," he said, apparently referring to the complicated mixed-member proportional representation election system in the Borwornsak draft.
CDC spokesman Amorn Wanichwiwatana said the drafting panel was working on the general principles of the rights and freedom of people.
He said the drafters also touched on the right to hold demonstrations in the public interest but the rallies must not cause economic damage such as with blockades.
He pointed out that it was unlikely that the death penalty would be revoked in the new charter but extreme measures such as the shackling of prison inmates could be abolished.
