First draft of new Thai Constitution finished

BANGKOK, January 18 (TNA) - Thailand's Constitution Drafting Assembly (CDC) has finished the first draft of the country's new Constitution, after its seven-day meeting in Phetchaburi Province in the Upper Thai South. CDC Chairman Meechai Ruchupan told journalsits on January 17 that the first draft of the new Thai Charter seriously insists on citizens’ rights, emphasizes everyone’s duties, protects Buddhism, which is the long-standing religion of the majority of the Thai people, and values minority votes. Meechai said in the first draft, minority groups would have the right to participate in Constitutional amendments and people would have their say on important issues, including environmental ones. Meechai stressed the most important thing is that the first Constitution draft would solve corruption, as mechanisms have been created to seriously tackle corruption and screen corrupt people and those found with dereliction of duties or electoral fraud from Thai politics, while even those in the Cabinet or the Parliament who support malfeasance or approve projects without transparency would be removed from duties en masse. Meechai, thus, called the new Thai Constitution draft an anti-corruption Charter, in which an appropriate degree of populist policies is also set through details on monetary and fiscal disciplines stated in an organic law to be completed before the new general election. According to the CDC chair, there would not be any amnesty in provisional clauses but what the army-led National Council for Peace and Order (NCPO) and the Cabinet did would be maintained until any party terminates them. The CDC chair noted that the new Constitution draft, which needs to go through a referendum, consists of 261 sections, excluding its provisional clauses, which have not yet been finished. (TNA)