Immunity denied in enforcing Internal Security Bill

"The draft Article 22 was removed to restore to the civil and criminal accountabilities of security officials," Prathan Watthanawanit said.

The committee voted to retain Article 21, prescribing for the exception of security officials from administrative litigations, he said, noting that securityrelated disputes would be handled by the Courts of Justice but not the Administrative Court.

The vetting process was close to completion and the remaining contentious issue was about the clarificiation of the legal definition of security issues to fall under the purview of the bill, he said.

Another committee member Pravit Wongsuwan said the vetted version of the bill did not alter the intent of the legislation, which was meant to provide the necessary mandate to authorities to deal with security theats with the least transgression of basic rights.

The Nation