On Feb 24, participants in a seminar in Pattani made a call to collect signatures of people in the southern border provinces to revoke the laws that they said were being misused by the authorities to abuse power and torture people in custody.

The current 2007 Constitution states that people can collect 10,000 signatures to propose laws and amendments to Parliament.

Thammasat law lecturer Parinya Thewanarumitkul said in the seminar that in addition to both laws, the 2007 Internal Security Act has also been imposed on the southern border provinces. He stressed the need to rely on the judicial process as much as possible, while he agreed with many others that the courts were not very reliable.

"Some of my students are judges, and I know Jaran Pakdeethanakul, Justice Ministry Permanent Secretary. I'm thinking of proposing that he organize seminars for judges to understand the problems in the southern border provinces, and how the judicial process can help solve the problems, as now there have been many instances of law violations [by the authorities] including torture. Martial Law and the Emergency Decree do not allow them to do that, but they do on their own."

He said the problem was that the Emergency Decree drafted by Bowornsak Uwanno, then Cabinet's Secretary, states in Article 16 that the enforcement of this law is not under the jurisdiction of the Administrative Court, and is not subject to either civil and criminal liabilities. So that encourages the authorities to abuse their powers.

"[Abuse] happens, due to the lack of accountability. I think the judiciary can examine this. The exemption from civil and criminal liabilities is not unconditional. The last sentence in this article says that [the authorities' actions] must be reasonable; if not, the actions are subject to civil and criminal liabilities."

He continued that another way is to ask the Constitution Court to consider whether the emergency decree is unconstitutional due to its infringement on people's rights and freedoms, but the outcome is unpredictable.

"Collecting signatures can be done to revoke only laws categorized under Chapter 3, People's Rights and Freedoms, and Chapter 5, State Policy Guidance. This law affects the rights and freedoms, but only its specific articles can be revoked, not the whole law. The problem is, technically, there's no obligation for the parliament to revoke the law," said Parinya.

Pol Maj Gen Jamrun Den-udom, former police officer in the southern border provinces, said in the seminar that victims of abuses by authorities still have no one to turn to. According to him, a son of a Muslim leader has been detained for 7 months now without trial. He made a complaint at the Southern Border Provinces Administrative Centre, and was told that the case was scheduled to go to court in 2009. The Centre could not do anything as the case is under the court's jurisdiction.