BANGKOK – it has almost become rhetorical these days when people talk about reconciliation. In part, they do not really mean what they preach; the government’s genuine intention to bring about peace and unity has been questioned as its proposal was announced while the emergency law is still being enforced. In part, many alternatives to reconciliation from either side seem at best impractical and at worst illogical; take one option advocated Khun Pleum or ML Nattakorn Devakula, for example.

He pointed out, during an evening panel discussion at the Foreign Correspondents Club of Thailand (FCCT) on Wednesday 23 June, that one major problem of the current political setting is that both current and the 1997 Constitutions give too much power to unelected (and supposedly independent) bodies such as the National Anti-Corruption Commission (NACC), the Electoral Commission (ECT) and the Constitutional Court. These agencies are not accountable to the electorate and has been politicalised to the extent that they have acted in excess of their powers, which resulted in the escalation of a succession of Thailand’s political standoffs. The Constitutional Court exceeded its role by meddling with politics in its rulings leading to the dissolution of Thai-Rak-Thai Party (TRT) and People’s Power Party (PPP). Political parties are formed to offer the voters’ choices in the election and represent them in democratic ways. Thus, in his view, judicial intervention in politics is strictly unwelcome. Likewise, the ECT’s role in handing out ‘red cards’ to those elected candidates who are deemed to violate the Electoral Law is just a slap in the faces of the people who voted for them since the ECT effectively takes away the voters’ mandate in choosing the politicians they prefer. Because of their inroads in politics, he argued that the Constitution should be amended to the extent that these agencies must be abolished.

Make no mistake; there are fundamental problems with these independent bodies and one way of addressing them is by amending the Constitution. Nonetheless, even though we went down that road, abolishing them altogether is definitely neither practical nor logical an answer. Firstly, it is impractical because these organisations were set up primarily to tackle the previously pressing issue of ineffective vetting process easily manipulated by politicians. The drafters of the 1997 Constitution, in realising this problem, empowered the then newly created Constitutional Court and ECT to be able to decisively reprimand the wrongdoers. Arguably, the dissolution of a political party and the issuance of ‘red cards’ were intended to be used only at the last resort or simply as a deterrent against any future illegal activities. The abolition of these agencies could potentially leave Thailand deeper and darker in the political labyrinth. Secondly, it is simply not a logical solution. Imagine we have a guard dog, which has become depressingly ineffective in preventing trespassers after it was taken seriously ill. An ordinary immediate reaction would not be to kill the dog since not only is that illogical, it would simply be too cruel! Rather we must attend to the root of the ailment, bring it to the veterinarian and treat it with necessary medicine. Similarly, the root of our political crisis is not the presence of the aforementioned agencies, rather how they use their powers and the frequency in which they become interfering with politics. The constitutional amendment could therefore be effected so that their influence is curtailed to the appropriate level of gravity and frequency. The subsequent question of what the appropriate level may be unfortunately has to be spared for another occasion due to limited time and space.

I personally share frustration with Khun Pleum in that these independent agencies, the Constitutional Court, and the ECT in particular, have so far played too decisive and influential a role in Thai politics. Unelected and unaccountable bodies should not be able to strike out popularly mandated politicians and their parties. To continue doing so would only condemn Thailand further into a spiral of hatred and anger. Nevertheless, we have to be more cautious and think long and hard about the initial purposes these bodies intend to serve before we abolish them entirely. A rash and/or insincere reconciliation plan is, to borrow Jeremy Bentham’s phrase, nonsense upon stilts.