The appointment of 100 members of the Constitution Drafting As-sembly (CDA) has received Royal endorsement.

Many well-known figures were among those appointed by the Council for National Security (CNS), and endorsed by the Royal command dated Monday.

The list was made available yesterday.

The CDA members include former senators Chirmsak Pinthong and Karun Sai-ngam, National Counter Corruption Commission member Klanarong Chantik and election commissioners Sodsri Satayatham and Praphan Naikowit.

Others are active or former bureaucrats, including permanent secretary for Justice Charan Phakdithanakul, Siwa Sangmanee, Aran Thammano, and Somchai Ruchuphan.

The newly appointed members of the Constitution Drafting Assembly could report to work from today, Kampee Disthakorn, deputy secretary-general of the Parliament, said yesterday.

Observers gave a lukewarm welcome to the new appointees, saying they would have to prove their worth.

Political scientist Prayad Hongthongkham said the 100 names were as the public expected, but it was too early to talk about their ability to draft a constitution.

He said the 100 members of the CDA would assign 25 people to the Constitution Drafting Committee to join 10 others chosen on the advice of the CNS chairman.

Prayad said the constitution was not the ultimate answer to political reform, as that depended on the behaviour of politicians.

"The previous constitution has been accepted as being the best set of laws, but it was cancelled. However the problem with politics is not the law but the user," he said.

If voters still picked constituency members on the basis of money changing hands instead of the government and policies they wanted, there would be no progress, Prayad said.

"The state must educate the people so they understand the meaning of an election," he said.

Suriyasai Katasila, secretary-general of the Popular Campaign for Democracy, said the new CDA was not worse than the chamber which drafted the 1997 charter.

"As we see [the names] on the CDA list, it is a good sign for political reform. Yet, we can't expect that we will get a constitution that is better than the 1997 one because the drafting will be dependant on other factors," he said.

Suriyasai noted there were 30 representatives from the government sector, 26 from academia, 26 from the private sector and 18 from the civic sector.

CNS member and Supreme Commander General Bunsang Niampradit insisted the junta would not interfere in the work of the CDA.

The CNS selected 100 members for the Drafting Assembly from 200 nominees.

One member of the National People's Assembly (NPA) complained that ordinary people were being left out of the drafting process.

Yuttaporn Issarachai said the recently passed royal decree requiring civil servant members of the CDA to be senior officials of C10 ranking or equivalent to director general status, or a professor if from academia - automatically disqualified many candidates.

"This is curbing the rights of others. It's a bad beginning that will lead to the drafting of a constitution by a group of elite [people] that will apply to the rest of the populace," said Yuttaporn, a political science lecturer at Sukhothai Thammathirat University.

"If we allow the process to proceed unilaterally, people will be forced to accept [the charter] they draft. There must be more public participation otherwise it will become worse."

Yuttaporn was among the 30 "renegade" NPA members who cried foul over the earlier election of 200 short-listed CDA members from the pool of 2,000 NPA candidates.

He said a number of the newly appointed CDA members were part of the previous drafting assembly for the 1997 constitution and that did not bode well as they had failed to draft a foolproof constitution the last time.

"These people should admit that they failed to ensure the so-called independent bodies remained independent," he said.

Amorn Wanichwiwatana, an NPA member and director of Chulalongkorn University's Centre for Thai Justice Research and Development, said the 100 names appeared to have been predetermined by the junta.

"It looks more like the junta's constitution drafting assembly," he said.

But other NPA members like Mongkol Rattana, from Phuket province, welcomed the list of 100 CDA members.

"I'm rather satisfied. Those we expected to be appointed have mostly been appointed," he said.

Mongkol said he remained sceptical about the neutrality of NPA chairman Meechai Ruchuphan, who will likely continue to play a crucial role in the drafting.

Pravit Rojanaphruk,

Sathien Wiriyaphanpongsa

The Nation