40 Thai senators seek PM’s dismissal over Cabinet appointment
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Thailand's Prime Minister Srettha Thavisin is facing a challenge from the senators who blocked the Move Forward Party from forming a government.
PHOTO: REUTERS
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BANGKOK – A total of 40 caretaker senators on May 17 petitioned Thailand’s Constitutional Court to dismiss Prime Minister Srettha Thavisin over a Cabinet appointment that they say breaches the Constitution.
The senators object to the appointment of Mr Pichit Chuenban, a former lawyer, as minister to Mr Srettha’s office in April during a Cabinet reshuffle
Mr Pichit was jailed for six months in 2008 for contempt of court after an alleged attempt to bribe court officials with two million baht (S$74,000) hidden in a paper grocery bag. His law licence was suspended for five years by the Lawyers Council of Thailand after the incident.
The senators said they were seeking a court ruling on whether Mr Pichit has the integrity and ethical standards required by the Constitution to hold a ministerial position and whether Mr Srettha breached the law by making the appointment.
“Pichit is not qualified to be a minister, but the Prime Minister still nominated him for the position,” Senator Derekrid Janekrongtham told Reuters.
“The Prime Minister’s action may therefore breach ethical standards as well,” he said.
Government critics say Mr Pichit was appointed to the Cabinet due to his close relationship with a client, former premier Thaksin Shinawatra, who returned to Thailand in 2023
Thaksin still wields considerable political influence over the government.
Government spokesman Chai Wacharonke dismissed the senators’ accusation, and said the government carefully vetted Mr Pichit’s qualification.
“Our legal team insists that the appointment is lawful and there is no problem with his qualification,” Mr Chai told Reuters.
The 40 senators, whose term ended earlier in May but who remain as caretakers until a new selection process is completed in July, are part of an appointed Upper House of Parliament introduced by the military when it changed Thailand’s Constitution after a 2014 coup.
In 2023, the same senators closed ranks with military-backed parties to block the anti-establishment Move Forward Party from forming a government. REUTERS
