Prosecution body age cut draws flak
A group of public prosecutors will today submit a petition to the National Legislative Assembly (NLA) opposing an amendment draft that prohibits senior prosecutors aged over 65 from serving on the Prosecution Commission.
Under the draft, sponsored by AttorneyGeneral Pongniwat Yuthapanboriparn, public prosecutors holding executive positions will serve until they are 65 instead of the mandatory retirement age of 70.
After that they will serve as senior prosecutors, but are not eligible to sit on the Prosecution Commission as currently allowed under the 2010 law governing public prosecutors. The draft is scheduled to go before the NLA on March 30.
Chaninya Chaisuwan, chief of the Department of Administrative Litigation, said she and other prosecutors will submit a letter to NLA president Pornpetch Wichitcholchai today requesting to have their say on the draft law.
She said the proposed amendment is against the new constitution’s Section 248, which allows state attorneys, including senior prosecutors, to serve as members of the Prosecution Commission.
The amendment draft also goes against section 77 of the charter which calls for comprehensive public hearings of a draft law that may affect the rights of people involved, she said.
According to Ms Chaninya, the draft lacks input from those prosecutors who will be affected by the change once the draft legislation is passed.
She also said the previous amendment to the law governing public prosecutors has affected the prosecutors’ benefits and rights including career advancement opportunities.
By extending the mandatory retirement age from 60 to 70, several prosecutors lost their chance of promotion to executive posts, or at the very least faced delays.
Even though a provision of the 2010 law requires compensation for the prosecutors, it will take 10 years before all them are fully compensated.
She said the latest attempt to revise the law will affect 383 senior prosecutors will not be able to vie for seats on the Prosecution Commission.