• 
• 
• 

Although the Joint House Session of April 23-24 has led to the formation of a reconciliation committee and a fact-finding committee, the series of meetings have produced limited results, even though the meetings were broadcast live for the general public.

Matichon said the fact-finding committee failed to reach its objective because the members, most of them from political parties and the Upper House, exchanged accusations and rebuttals rather than concentrating on how to clarify the events.

During the debate, both sides tried to grab attention through the exchange of words instead of sharing information. The view of the red-shirt side is different from that of the government, but neither side tried to establish the facts. This is at the expense of the public interest, as many questions remain unanswered.

Matichon summed up that no further time should be wasted, and the committee should revise its strategy. Members should refrain from rhetoric and instead provide useful evidence for the sub-committees to establish the truth of what actually happened at Songkran - in the same way that incidents during the bloodshed of May 1992 and October 1976 were investigated.

Thai Rath's editorial questioned if the Pheu Thai Party's successful move to ask the Constitution Court to consider the government's draft executive decree to seek emergency loans is a check and balance effort or simply an attempt to sabotage the government's economic rescue plan.

The court agreed to accept the petition raised by the Pheu Thai Party to consider whether the government's plan to seek a Bt400 billion loan to stimulate the economy is constitutional.

Although the finance minister told the House that the government needed the money urgently to finance its spending programme and boost the economy, some Pheu Thai MPs said the move was unconstitutional. In fact, the promulgation of executive decrees to seek loans is nothing new. The Thaksin Shinawatra government authorised the Finance Ministry to seek foreign loans to boost the economy in 1998 via two executive decrees. The Constitution Court then ruled that the issue was constitutional because the issue of the decrees was related to the economic security of the country and the Cabinet viewed that it was imperative.

Thai Rath said that if the enforcement of the decree has to be delayed, pending the court's ruling, some economists warn that it will affect the fund mobilisation effort to boost the economy, wrecking the recovery momentum.

Thai Rath summed up that while there are signs that some sectors of the economy are rebounding, it hoped that no Thai would be mean enough to suppress the economic recovery effort for the entire nation, because the negative effects would be felt by all.