The National Anti Corruption Commission has decided to drop five impeachment cases against the prime minister and ordered additional probes in three pending cases, NACC member Klanarong Chantik said on Friday.
Eight impeachment complaints were filed since PM Abhisit Vejjajiva took office on December 17, 2008.
In the first case, Abhisit was targetted for probe on unconstitutional conduct related to his election boycott in 2006. His opponents argued for impeachment due to what they termed as his unconstitutional conduct.
The nine-member NACC ruled in an unanimous decision to drop the case on the ground that Abhisit was not the prime minister at the time of the alleged wrongdoing.
Under the constitutional provisions, the impeachment can only be activated for violations committed by invoking the power of the office in question.
In the second case, Abhisit was accused of violating the charter and breaking from political traditions by causing the alliance switch to pave way for his government to come to power.
The NACC made a similar decision to drop the case because it happened when Abhisit had no executive power.
In the third case, Abhisit was accused of violating the charter by naming Kasit Piromya as the foreign minister.
The NACC decided to launch the additional probe into the matter. Even though Kasit was not in office when he was a speaker for the yellow-shirt rally at the Suvarnabhumi Airport, the government is sponsoring a draft legislation on airport safety.
The draft is seen as lenient to the yellow shirts because if it is enacted, it will be favourable to the yellow shirts because the besieging of airports would be penalised by a fine instead of a more serious penalty for terrorism.
The NACC has ordered for checks on Kasit's role in connection with the draft before it would rule on the impeachment of Abhisit.
In the fourth case, the NACC decided to suspend the probe on Abhisit related to his alleged interference in the shuffling of the officials in the Culture Ministry.
The case is linked to a separate investigation involving the conduct of Deputy Prime Minister Suthep Thaug. The NACC will return to the case involving Abhist after the completion of its investigation on Suthep.
In the fifth case, Abhisit faced the complaint on the Democrat Party financial records related to the Bt258 million donation. The NACC dropped the case on the ground that it happened in 2004, before Abhisit took office.
In the sixth case, Abhisit was accused of neglecting to safeguard the territorial integrity and the sovereignty in the disputed area near Preha Vihear Temple.
The NACC ruled to drop the case after finding that the government had consistently protested against any territorial violations and that it did not condoned the unilateral decision by Cambodian government to construct a road near the temple.
In the seventh case, the NACC dropped its investigation because Abhisit did not invoke his prime ministerial power when his Democrat Party certified Thanin Chaisamut as the electoral candidate for the Satun Provincial Organisation Administration.
In the last case on SMS, the NACC ordered the additional probe to look into the tax issue.
Abhisit and Finance Minister Korn Chatikavanij were involved in sending out SMS as the public service. Although the SMS as public service had followed past precedents since 2003, Korn granted income tax exemption for SMS revenues he deemed as the public service.
In the past, the people did not respond to public-service SMS. But in this case, they sent replies to messages from Abhisit. This generated revenues at Bt3 per reply for mobile operators.
The NACC needs to examine the tax implications before ruling whether to activate impeachment.