Useless

We missed an important article a few days ago, at Asia Sentinel, authored by human rights activist Pokpong Lawansiri, that details the sorry tale of the National Human Rights Commission of Thailand (NHRC).

Pokpong begins by noting:

NHRC head Amara Pongsapich and friend: opposing human rights

During the administration of the then-Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, … [the NHRC] was dubbed the most helpful and most relevant independent agency in the eyes of ordinary Thais. That is no longer true.

While Pokpong notes that, under Yingluck Shinawatra, the NHRC has become irrelevant, the process of de-fanging the NHRC has been a post-2006 coup phenomenon. This is because the military junta and the Abhisit Vejjajiva regime that gave the NHRC extra powers, they used it as a political tool and stacked it with political flunkies:

This explains why the former civil servants from the Royal Thai Police, Ministry of Social Development and Human Security, Drink Don’t Drive Foundation campaigner, and a businessman were selected instead of veteran human rights activists….

While the Constitution stresses explicitly that the commissioners need to have knowledge and experience in the field of human rights, the current batch do not know what are and what are not human rights….

The NHRC has repeatedly delayed the “publication of its fact-finding report on the April–May 2010 crackdown after 37 months have passed,” although no one expects such a report to be sincere or comprehensive.

Pokpong calls for “the Pheu Thai Party … to seriously consider the need to reform the NHRC.”

If the government did consider reform for the NHRC, it would need to demonstrate a serious concern for human rights. While Abhisit and the military royalists might have neutered it, a useless the Commission may well suit the current government.