Charter bill set for Parliament

The Pheu Thai Party will submit its version of a charter amendment bill to Parliament by Thursday, seeking to set up a 99-member charter drafting assembly, the party spokesman said yesterday.

Pheu Thai spokesman Prompong Nopparit told a press conference the party's legal team had finished drafting the amendment bill.

He said the draft would be sent to coalition whips to consider today and check if further changes are needed.

If the whips agree with the draft, it would be sent back to Pheu Thai to endorse during a party meeting tomorrow, Prompong said.

He said the draft would be tabled in Parliament on Wednesday or Thursday at the latest. Prompong said other coalition partners agreed with Pheu Thai in principle on amending the 2007 Constitution - but the draft would be sent to them to review first.

Prompong said the draft would amend Article 291 of the charter to set up a 99-member constitution drafting assembly (CDA). He said 77 CDA members would be elected from 77 provinces while the 22 other members would be picked through a selection process.

He said Pheu Thai made a public promise during the election campaign to amend the charter so the amendment draft needed to be submitted to Parliament within the current session.

Prompong affirmed that all articles related to the monarchy would be left intact as the draft states that any change that affects the Constitutional Monarchy cannot be adopted.

He said Pheu Thai was confident the charter to be drawn up by the CDA would be endorsed via a public referendum - although the amendment draft has a clause about what action should be taken if the CDA draft is shot down.

The amendment draft states that if the CDA draft is rejected, the Cabinet or MPs or senators could ask Parliament to draft a new charter. Prompong said the clause was added to make the draft "comprehensive".