Thailand’s Constitutional Court has today thrown out each petition case filed regarding the charter amendment bills.

On the proposed amendment of Section 291 to set up an assembly to rewrite the entire constitution, the court ruled that this cannot be done, because the 2007 constitution received the people’s endorsement through a public referendum.

Therefore, a public referendum is required to decide whether the constitution should be amended in the entirety.

The court suggested the charter be amended by sections.

On the argument whether the charter amendment bill could be seen as intended to abolish the country’s democratic administration and the constitutional monarchy, the court ruled that the proposed amendment to Section 291 to set up a constitution drafting assembly cannot be taken as having such an intention.

The petitioners merely raised fears out of concerns for the monarchy, the court said.

Therefore, there as no reason to further consider whether the proposed change would lead to the dissolution of the political parties which supported the bill, the court said.

The court also dismissed a petition submitted by yellow-shirt People’s Alliance for Democracy core member Chamlong Srimuang that it delay the verdict.

Now what does this all mean?

• This does help to reduce political tension because the PT party party won’t be dissolved, no more politicians banned, and the charter amendment bill can go ahead. Only Thaksin seems to lose from this as his fastest route back to Thailand (via the reconciliation bill) may be taken off the House’s agenda (win for anti-Thaksin folks) and from what I’m hearing several of the current politicians in his camp are happier that he isn’t here.
• The stock market did react extremely positively today ending up +1.44%.
• Thus as we’ve written here before, politics here is simply the equivalent of the local drama shows. Meh.

Source: Bangkok Post