By Thai Newsroom Reporters
ANOTHER LAWSUIT has been filed in pursuit of a court ruling to immediately depose Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra of power on grounds of naming an allegedly dishonest, unethical Thavi Sodsong for a member of her cabinet.
The so-called Khana Nitichon Cherdchutham legal activist group lodged the lawsuit to the Constitutional Court via the Election Commission against Paetongtarn, daughter of billionaire power player Thaksin Shinawatra, for recently naming Thavi, who concurrently performs as Prachachart leader, the justice minister despite his having allegedly perpetrated an abuse of power to grant unlawful privileges to her father/de facto Pheu Thai boss.
That the justice minister had managed to have the prime minister’s father stay in a private ward at Police Hospital for six months in lieu of a hospital in the premises of Bangkok Remand prison evidently signified an undue grant of double-standard privileges for the then-convict Thaksin who may have allegedly feigned “critical illnesses” to keep himself from literally being put behind bars for a single day.
Last year, the coup-deposed Thaksin who had returned from 17 years of self-exile abroad and been judged guilty by court and sentenced in absentia to eight years in prison due to a few counts of power abuse and misconduct perpetrated during his previous premiership with the jail sentence being curtailed by royal pardon to only one year had been “detained outside of the prison” by being admitted at Police Hospital for six months until he was released on parole earlier this year.
But the alleged double standards evidently practised by the justice minister as well as the chiefs of the Corrections Department, Bangkok Remand prison and Police Hospital in favour of Thaksin were tantamount to the illegal compromising of basic human rights for other convicts who would not have savoured such privileges, according to the activist group.
The lawsuit cites last month’s historic ruling of the Constitutional Court which immediately deposed former prime minister Srettha Thavisin of power on grounds of severely violating the wide-ranging code of political ethics and the constitution by naming former lawyer-turned-convict Pichit Chuenban a minister in a previous cabinet lineup.
Pichit who had been convicted for contempt of court and sentenced to months in jail had previously worked for the de facto Pheu Thai boss who had allegedly pressed the court-deposed prime minister to name him the portfolioless minister.
The activist group was not only seeking the immediate termination of Paetongtarn’s prime-ministerial status but simultaneously Thavi’s ministerial status on grounds of evident dishonesty, unethicality and power abuse as had been the case of her predecessor.
The activist group’s lawsuit cites findings of the Medical Council of Thailand and National Human Rights Commission pertaining to the contentious, double-standard privileges as well as dishonest and unethical acts allegedly committed in undue favour of the billionaire power player.
However, it remains to be seen whether and how soon the Election Commission will forward the case to the Constitutional Court alongside others earlier filed against the woman prime minister and the Pheu Thai, core of the current coalition, where she concurrently acts as leader.
Paetongtarn and all other members of the party’s executive board have been accused in those lawsuits of being dominated and directed by Thaksin to name his former lawyer for minister and finally cost Srettha the elected premiership.
CAPTIONS:
Top and Front Page: Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra arriving at Government House prior to taking the oath to office before His Majesty the King this evening, Sept. 6, 2024.
Insert: Thavi Sodsong who has been named justice minister.
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