The government whip has proposed setting up a special House committee to discuss among all political parties what a new amnesty bill should look like.
The talks would be held prior to the the joint drafting of a bill for submission to the House for deliberation, said Chusak Sirinil, a list-MP of the ruling Pheu Thai Party, speaking in his capacity as an adviser to the government whip.
“We are being particularly careful on this sensitive issue. Hence, we think it would be best for us to begin with considerable discussion in a formal House committee comprising both government and opposition parties,” he said on Tuesday.
He said an urgent motion would be filed requesting the formation of the committee, which would have one representative from each political party.
Pheu Thai has yet to draw up an amnesty bill and would never propose its own version as a model for a joint draft expected later when the new House committee reaches a conclusion on the scope of the bill, Mr Chusak said.
Pheu Thai was reportedly prepared to submit its own version of the amnesty bill for deliberation in the House earlier, along with a version proposed by the main opposition Move Forward Party (MFP), which prompted questions over the real motive behind its push for such a law.
The party responded to its critics by saying that it has always been party policy to seek an amnesty as a way of getting past more than two decades of political conflicts and their lasting impact.
The amnesty push, Mr Chusak said, has nothing to do with former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra, the Pheu Thai patriarch who is currently serving a one-year prison sentence, albeit in a VIP wing at Police General Hospital.
Move Forward is drumming up support for its version of an amnesty bill, which it says should cover lese-majeste offences, but most parties in the coalition oppose that idea.
“We don’t want to see a new amnesty bill provoke a new wave of social division when it is submitted to the House for deliberation,” said Mr Chusak. “That kind of division would likely end in a major new political conflict, which is why we need to be extra careful.”