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Published on October 15, 2007

Last week's quickly withdrawn proposed amendment to the lese majeste law in order to protect Privy Council members from being criticised reveals a disturbing mentality on the part of members of the junta-appointed National Legislative Assembly (NLA) who backed it.

Some NLA members are prominent journalists, including Pattara Kampitak, former president of the Thai Journalists Association, and columnist Kamnoon Sittisamarn of Manager Daily newspapers.

The two ought to be especially aware of the need to make this society more open and transparent and to promote freedom of expression as well as press freedom. But what they tried to do would invariably have generated the opposite result.

The two, along with dozens of other NLA members, appear to believe in a double standard, a dangerous mentality that regards the majority of citizens as unfit to deal with reality, or at least, with the simple exercise of discussing the role of the Privy Council.

Instead of helping making Thai society more transparent and free, they tried to limit it further through amending the lese majeste law. That move would not only have curbed freedom of expression, but also promote gossip, rumour and speculation targeting the Privy Council, something that could backfire on the highest institution itself.

In other words, widening the lese majeste law would only turn society into one that subsists more on hearsay, gossip and rumour about the council. People would find it difficult to rationalise and would have to rely on gut feeling whether to believe a story told by word-of-mouth as fact or not.

Societies clouded by gossip or rumour are not healthy. Recently, the Royal Family had to summon reporters following days of widespread hearsay regarding the health of a leading palace figure. Even His Majesty the King himself mentioned to the media that a rumour about the death of his favourite pet dog, Khun Thong Daeng, was false. These are only some examples.

These NLA members could further worsen the situation by making discussion on Privy Council members a taboo and an illegal act.

Even if the law was amended, it would most definitely not put an end to people's interest in and curiosity about the role of the Privy Council in society. The last thing Thailand needs is for healthy or constructive debate on the role of the privy councillors to be driven underground.

Advocates for the amendment of the law may think they are doing the council a service. But what is likely to be achieved is the opposite, as it would merely shift the venue and format of discussion into the private realm of closed-door, small chat groups or the anonymous realm of cyberspace. The problem is that there is no way of verifying what is true or false, reliable or fictitious, well-intended or malicious. Such a mode of communication spreads fast and tends to quickly mutate into different versions.

It will likely backfire and it would not be difficult to reason out whom should be blamed.

Pravit Rojanaphruk

The Nation