Charter court controversy
The 3.2-trillion-baht budget bill for the 2020 fiscal year was back in the House of Representatives on Thursday for a re-vote and the document looks to be on track for enactment.
The process was completed without any hiccups or concern over a quorum, after government MPs turned out in force in the face of an opposition boycott.
The bill’s second reading and section-bysection vote was repeated after concerns were raised about the possible lack of a quorum.
Following the debate, House Speaker Chuan Leekpai called a re-vote from Section 1 onwards at 4.30pm. The third reading then saw the budget bill passed by a vote of 257 to 1 with three abstentions in a record time of under two hours.
Ahead of the re-vote on Thursday, MPs were urged not to debate the document since the Jan 10-11 debate had covered all the necessary details and MPs had already taken longer than usual deliberating.
Ruangkrai Leekitwattana, a Pheu Thai Party member of the House committee vetting the budget bill, sought a debate on almost all sections, but agreed to drop his request amid applause from the chamber.
The re-vote was ordered by the Constitutional Court after it ruled the second and third readings of the draft legislation on Jan 10-11 were rigged by proxy voting by at least four government MPs.
The court said the budget bill was only partially constitutional and ordered MPs to vote again on the sections affected by proxy voting.
The bill was finally passed on Thursday, but the government may not be able to sit back and relax, according to political observers.
Future Forward Party (FFP) secretary-general Piyabutr Saengkanokkul voiced strong disagreement with the re-vote, saying the court may have overstepped the mark.
In his opinion, the court was asked to rule whether the bill should be dropped or left to be enacted in its entirety, and it was not within its jurisdiction to order a re-vote.
Mr Piyabutr, a list-MP, said the court’s jurisdiction should be clearly defined to ensure the ruling is not seen as dictating to parliament.
His comment was rebuffed by Jade Donavanik, former adviser to the Constitution Drafting Committee. “The court ruling has binding effects on every agency. If the House wants the law-making process completed, it has to re-vote,” he said.
According to Mr Jade, the court’s ruling also ensured parliamentary scrutiny of the bill did not go to waste.
Without a re-vote, parliament would have had to resort to the rigged version, invalidating all the changes made during scrutiny of the bill. In that case, the rigged bill would have been adopted with all its original content intact, including untrimmed funds for the various ministries.
This would also have meant that changes made to the bill by the special House committee set up to examine draft laws would be discarded, Mr Jade said.
Mr Chuan, meanwhile, said the re-vote was fair and legitimate and above all a done deal despite the opposition’s concern that the bill was passed after the deadline.
According to the opposition, the 105-day time limit to pass the budget may have lapsed last month after the bill was initially cleared by the House, rendering the re-vote illegitimate.
However, Mr Chuan explained the timeline did not apply to the re-vote because it was a new process triggered by the court’s order.