First, the new charter, which will be voted on in a referendum in September after the final draft is endorsed by the Constitution Drafting Assembly, will be more effective in preventing abuse of public office for undue private benefit, if the first draft is any indication.

Second, the new charter will make it much more difficult for politicians in high office to interfere with the appointment of members of key independent bodies designed to serve as check-and-balance mechanisms on executive power.

According to Dr Komson Potikong, one of the 35 charter-writers, five articles of the first draft of the new 2007 charter - from Article 256 to Article 260 - are devoted to plugging the loopholes previously exploited by public-office holders. In short, the charter will explicitly state that the prime minister, Cabinet members, MPs and senators are required to transfer their assets to trustees as designated by law prior to taking office, so that their private interests are clearly separate from those of the public.

The National Counter Corruption Commission will be responsible for enforcing the letter of the law on this requirement.

Komson noted that the 1997 charter touched on this crucial matter only briefly. There was also an exemption clause regarding existing concession contracts, resulting in controversial cases of policy corruption and abuse of public office that led to the September 19 coup that ousted Thaksin Shinawatra. The build-up to the coup began when the former premier's family sold their majority stake in Shin Corp to Temasek Group of Singapore in a Bt73-billion tax-free transaction in January last year.

Having read the first draft of the new charter, Sombat of NIDA said the charter loopholes that enabled the policy corruption and conflicts of public and private interest under the previous government had apparently been closed because the letter of the law on these issues was specific.

On the appointment of members of key independent bodies such as the Constitution Court and the Election Commission, both of which were embroiled in controversy during the last days of the Thaksin regime, Sombat said the new charter would give the judiciary the lead role in nominating candidates to sit on such bodies.

According to the first draft of the 2007 charter, all Supreme Court judges (whose total number is less than 100) will convene to select three of their judges to be candidates for the Constitution Court, while Supreme Administrative Court judges will also convene to select two of their number as candidates for the same court.

Then the Supreme Court and Supreme Administrative Court will each nominate another two candidates, making a total of nine candidates to sit on the Constitution Court.

The list of all nine candidates will then go to the Senate for final approval. The Senate can only accept or reject the entire list of candidates. Under the 1997 charter, the 200-member Senate was more powerful, as it was empowered to hand-pick candidates, resulting in widespread lobbying and alleged corruption.

Similar selection and nomination criteria will be used to appoint members of the Election Commission and other crucial independent bodies.

The first draft of the 2007 charter also does away with an elected Senate, since it was evident that most of the senators elected under the 1997 charter came from the same power and voter base as the members of Parliament, resulting in the inability of the majority of these senators to serve as a check and balance on the Lower House.

According to the proposed new charter, there will be only 320 constituency MPs and 80 appointed senators. Under the 1997 charter, there were 400 constituency MPs plus 100 party-list MPs and 200 elected senators.

In Sombat's opinion, the proposed new charter is fine and the majority of people will likely vote for it later this year.

Nophakhun Limsamarnphun

 nop1122@yahoo.com