Unethical royalists target progressives

The Nations reports that the People’s Party has had to again state the obvious: “that sponsoring a bill aimed at amending the lese majesté law was legitimate…”.

Party leader Natthapong Ruengpanyawut said that the “National Anti-Corruption Commission (NACC)’s decision to indict some party MPs for breaching ethical standards” is a declaration that MPs may not exercise their legislative right and duty. He said: “Proposing a bill falls under a lawmaker’s authority. It does not violate any law or ethical standard…”, adding that the NACC should not have proceeded with this case.

Of course, he’s right and correct. However, this is royalist Thailand where progressives are viewed as republicans and where a threat to the monarchy is seen in even private words between people. Such whispers may be considered a threat to national security. Law doesn’t matter and ethics were buried years ago.

Interestingly, the “bill did not make it through the process for deliberation by the House.”

As is so often the case, the action against the progressive MPs comes from a complaint from an ultra-royalist: a petition from lawyer Teerayut Suwankeson. And, naturally enough for royalist actions, his petition was based on yet another politicized “ruling” by the Constitutional Court that:

said that Move Forward’s attempts to alter Article 112 are deemed as an attempt to overthrow the existing democratic regime with the king as the head of the state, breaching section 49 of the Constitution. The party was told to cease all its actions over the matter.

This “ruling” represents complete twaddle, with no basis in law, but the party was still dissolved.

“Law” for the constitutional court involves concocting cases against progressive parties and others seen as a threat to the status quo, and getting rid of them. The court makes it up as they go along but its decisions can usually be anticipated based on the level of “threat” presented for the status quo.

In this case, we may be pretty sure that the MPs will all be banned.

Natthapong urged the NACC “to be impartial.” He might as well wish for the moon. It is impossible for the NACC to be any such thing.

When Thaksin Shinawatra and his parties were seen as threats, they were hammered. Now that he’s done a deal with the ruling class and the palace, his party and he can pretty much avoid such charges of “disloyalty.” But what of Thaksin’s lese majeste charge? Who knows. He seems to do pretty much as he pleases, running government and a foreign policy agenda. Double standards are flexible and royalist.