The Election Com-mission (EC) will have to check if executives of the dissolved parties committed criminal and electoral offences, Office of Attorney General's spokesman Attapol Yaisawang said yesterday.

He said the EC would have to get both verdicts from the party dissolution cases from the Cons-titution Tribunal to check if executives of dissolved parties committed any offences in regard to the MP and Sena-tors Election Act 1998, and the Politi-cal Party Act 1998.

He said the Party Registrar and the EC had to file complaints against them with the police so public prosecutors could file charges.

The executives who face legal action include 111 from Thai Rak Thai (TRT), nine from the Progressive Demo-cratic Party, three from the Thai Ground Party and 19 from the Pattana Chart Thai Party.

The EC also had to clear the assets of the dissolved parties.

Vichit Plangsri-kul, a Thai Rak Thai adviser, said he did not know how much of the party's assets were left.

Although the party received Bt134 million in donations last year, it had also "spent a lot".

The party did

not specify in its regulations which organisation it wanted to donate its assets to, if dissolved.

According to EC regulations, in this case, Thai Rak Thai has to donate any remaining assets to the Fund for the Development of Political Parties.

Parinya Thewanarumitkul, a lecturer at Thammasat Univer-sity's Faculty of Law, called for Announcement 27 by the Council for Democratic Reform, which bans executives of dissolved parties from politics for five years, to be removed.

He said it was unfair to executives who did not commit an offence.

"This ban is like a political death sentence. Removing the ban would be a healing measure to provide justice to other executives,'' he said.

Parinya said the EC should have only taken legal action against Thamarak Isarangura and Pongsak Ruktapongpisal for falsifying the EC's database and reporting false statements, offences that carry a maximum three-year jail term.

Leaders of the small dissolved parties could be subject to up to 10 years jail for contesting an election by falsifying documents.