"Members of the selection panel for the National Counter Corruption Commission (NCCC) must be individuals who can not be bought or sold," Nurak Mapraneet said.

Nurak, tasked to rewrite charter provisions on independent organisations, said the existing selection process for the NCCC was prone to be tampered by government politicians.

The 15member selection panel should be revamped to comprise five members so as to weed out those partisan representatives and university presidents susceptible to voting under government pressure, he said.

The five members of the NCCC selection panel should include three judicial leaders from the Supreme Court, the Supreme Administrative Court and the Constitution Court, he said, adding the other two would be the Parliament president and the opposition leader.

In regard to the qualifications of job applicants, he said NCCC candidates could come from professional groups, the civil service and academia. The work experience would be lowered in order to allow a larger pool of candidates, he said.

The penalties for abusing office or exerting influence over the NCCC would be increased to be on par with the tampering of the judicial review.

Offenders could face capital punishment.

The Nation