Tomorrow (7 August), the Constitutional Court will rule whether to dissolve the Move Forward Party (MFP), now the largest opposition party, over an accusation of treason stemming from its campaign to amend the royal defamation law.

The Election Commission of Thailand (ECT) filed a petition seeking the MFP’s dissolution after the Constitutional Court ruled on 31 January that the MFP and its former leader Pita Limjaroenrat abused their constitutional rights and liberties to overthrow the democratic regime with the King as the Head of State by campaigning to amend the royal defamation law. The ECT is also petitioning the Constitutional Court to ban MFP executive board members from politics.

Khemthong Tonsakulrungruang

Khemthong Tonsakulrungruang, lecturer at Chulalongkorn University’s Faculty of Political Science, said that the dissolution petition could be seen as either a continuation of the 31 January ruling or as separate cases. The ECT sees the petition as a continuation of the previous ruling, and so it can use the ruling as a basis to file its petition. Meanwhile, the MFP cited Sections 92 and 93 of the Organic Act on Political Parties, along with the ECT’s own regulations, to argue that the ECT is required to conduct an inquiry in line with these regulations.

Procedure is important in a trial, Khemthong said. If there is a mistake in how an investigation is conducted, the court must dismiss the case no matter if the defendant is guilty, he said, because under the rule of law, both the procedure and the result must be legitimate. Part of the MFP’s defence is that the ECT did not conduct its inquiry according to due process since it did not listen to both parties involved and was not careful when making its decision.

Khemthong noted that in November 2010, the Constitutional Court dismissed a petition seeking the dissolution of the Democrat Party, which had been accused of receiving donations from TPI Polene Company, on the grounds that the ECT did not file its petition within the 15-day time limit.

“[The Democrat Party] is probably the only party to escape a petition seeking its dissolution,” Khemthong said. “The Court did not dismiss the petition for the dissolution of the Democrat Party because the Democrat Party did not commit the offence they were accused of. The Court only pointed out that the ECT’s investigation process was unlawful. It had made a mistake about the timeframe, so the petition was dismissed.”

Nevertheless, he said that there is both a legal aspect and a political aspect to the case against the MFP. He noted that the MFP is not wasting its time arguing whether it can amend the royal defamation law, since a ruling was already made on this issue, but is focusing on the procedure, which could be more complicated since it involves how technical legal details are to be interpreted.

Meanwhile, he noted that the MFP chose as its expert witness Surapon Nitikraipot, a professor of law who previously served as Rector of Thammasat University and the ECT’s legal consultant, a decision he said was political.

Khemthong said that Surapon is conservative-leaning in his politics. Meanwhile, the fact that he is a former Rector of Thammasat University and Dean of the University’s Faculty of Law must add weight to his testimony, given that two of the Constitutional Court judges, Udom Ratamarit and Nakharin Mektrairat, were Thammasat lecturers.

To dissolve or not to dissolve?

Khemthong believes that proposing to amend the royal defamation law through the legislative process is not treason, and that this case should not have been about dissolving the MFP. However, he noted that the Constitutional Court has set the precedent that proposing to amend a law can be treasonous, and that the Court has dissolved political parties for less serious issues, such as for taking a loan, which it saw as unlawful income. Because of this, he believes that there is no legal ground to dissolve the MFP, and that the Court had already set a precedent when it dismissed the petition against the Democrat Party on a technical issue.

“But in terms of politics, we can’t tell. Does it make sense to use politics to analyse the Court? But people think it makes more sense than analysing it by the law because the Court is no longer a judicial organization. It has become a kind of political organization because it considers things more in terms of politics than thinking legally. It is something that is quite concerning,” he said.

Khemthong said that, if the petition against the MFP is dismissed, the overall political atmosphere would improve. It would show that the Constitutional Court could make rulings in line with existing principles and that the country is capable of compromise and of accepting ideological differences. He noted that businesses may also want the atmosphere to improve.

The Court has a choice not to dissolve the MFP, he said, which would not be difficult because the Court could refuse to dissolve a party just because it proposes to amend a law according to the parliamentary process.

“If you [the Constitutional Court] are going to rule now not to dissolve the Party, people will not ask why you’ve changed your mind when you made a ruling half a year ago because if the petition is dismissed, then it’s final. You don’t have to worry about that. You [the Court] have changed a lot of precedents in your lifetime. Why will you be concerned about the precedent in this single case, where you already know that the precedent is wrong?” he said.

Khemthong said, however, that it would not be a surprise if the MFP is dissolved, and he expects that there will not be either hope or violence.

“The most difficult thing faced by the Thai authoritarian regime were the 2020-2021 protests,” he said, “but when it decided to use real violence to crackdown on protesters, it found that this did not rebound on the government. Instead, it was able to completely stop the protests, so there is nothing the authoritarian regime doesn’t dare to do.”

Meanwhile, civil society is losing its momentum. Khemthong noted that mass protests during the last few years occurred because different groups, such as students, pro-democracy activists, and Pheu Thai Party supporters, were able to come together, but he does not expect such a scenario to happen again.

“There won’t be mass protests, which is what they are most afraid of, and on the other hand, dissolving a political party is an effective tool to make the opposition surrender to authority,” he said.

Khemthong also said that dissolution has been a cause for parties limiting their actions. Such is the case after the dissolution of the Thai Rak Thai Party and the People Power Party, after which some members formed the Pheu Thai Party. He noted that Pheu Thai is more compromising than its predecessors and has formed a government with former coup supporters.

Despite the MFP’s win in the 2023 general election, Khemthong believes that there will be less opposition when compared to the mass protests that followed the dissolution of the MFP’s predecessor, the Future Forward Party. Dissidents have been repressed by prosecutions, the use of information operations and other means that have led to conflict in the movement. Meanwhile, the economic situation means that people have less energy to protest, leading to a period where, although there is no risk of political violence, the political situation will worsen.

When asked if the MFP’s dissolution would make it more difficult to discuss the royal defamation law, Khemthong said the law has already become untouchable and the situation will not change with the verdict. He noted that even the committee studying approaches to an amnesty bill does not mention the law by name in their meetings, instead calling it “sensitive cases.”

If the MFP is not dissolved, Khemthong said that discussing the royal defamation law would not get easier, since the Constitutional Court’s 31 January ruling prohibits campaigning relating to the royal defamation law, but he expects that the political situation will become less tense. Nevertheless, he said that nothing would be likely to change because the conservatives would still be in power regardless of whether the MFP is dissolved or not.