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December 2006 : New Year Eve Bombing in Bangkok
Bangkok was rocked by 8 explosions on New Tear Eve.
The National Legislative Assembly [ NLA] passed the Bt. 1.566 trillion 2007 Budget Bill.
The Cabinet approved the amendment of the criminal file suit of the political position allowing senior judges to sit in the jury panel.
The Supreme Administrative Court upheld the Central Administrative Court’s verdict to void the arbitration ruling on concession fee payments won by iTV.
The Council of State invalidated the regulation to ban all forms of alcohol advertising on TV and radio 24 hours a day.
PM Surayd Chulanont said that the country’s university administration needed to be decentralized.
The Constitution Tribunal ruled to split its hearing of Thai Rak Thai and Democrat parties dissolution into two separate cases.
A mob of more than 200 Buddhists gathered on route 410 in Yala province demanding the state officials to strict to the law.
NCCC resolved to indict Revenue Department director-general and four other senior officials on criminal and disciplinary charges for allegedly failing to tax Shin Corp sale.
Benchmark for transferring public schools to local authority will be reduced.
PM admitted causes of violence in the three southern provinces of Thailand were from social injustice.
8 Bombs blasted in Bangkok
Bangkok was rocked by 8 explosions on 17.30 hr until New Tear Eve and left 2 people dead and more than 20 injuries. New Year countdowns and other celebratory functions were cancelled, including two much-awaited events at centralWorld and Sanam Luang, where people gathered briefly and dispersed after learning of the attacks.
Prime Minister Surayut Chulanont said from the evidence gathered the bombs are likely caused by domestic politics releted to people who lost their political benefit rather than the Muslim insurgency in the three southern provinces. The kind of bombs used, the places they picked, and the timing showed their intention was to cause panic and fear.
NLA passed the budget bill
The National Legislative Assembly [ NLA] on December 27 passed the Bt. 1.566 trillion Budget Bill for 2007. Of the 242 members, 148 attended the session and 147 approved after five hours of debate. The Bill will soon be passed on to the His Majesty the King for endorsement before becoming effective.
The budget, more than Bt. 1.9 billion cut, is Bt. 146 billion deficit due to more than Bt. 100 billion must be allocate to the populist policies under deposed premier Thaksin Shinawatra. They included the rice-pledging program operated by the Bank of Agriculture and Agricuturural Cooperatives and Public Warehouse Organization, the Village Fund, and the Bt 30 medical scheme.
Political position criminal law amended
The Cabinet on December 12 approved the amendment of the criminal file suit of the political position allowing senior judges to sit in the jury panel. The bill was submitted by Office of the jurisdiction court to support incoming cases from the Asset Examination Committee [ AEC] and National Counter Corruption Commission [ NCCC].
Panya Thanomrod, Supreme Court president commented that current 87 Supreme Court judges might not be sufficient if there are many ruling at the same time therefore senior judges whose position equivalent to Supreme Court judge should be appointed to the position.
iTV’s rule upheld
The Supreme Administrative Court upheld the Central Administrative Court’s verdict to void the arbitration ruling on concession fee payments won by iTV. This means that iTV would have to pay Bt1 billion a year to the Prime Minister’s Office, which granted the concession, or at least Bt20 billion over the next 20 years of the concession term.
Plus iTV faces a fine of Bt100 million a day for breach of contract, amounting to Bt94 billion throughout the remaining contract period.
The administrative litigation involved the Prime Minister’s Office as the complainant and iTV as the accused. The disputed parties signed a 30-year joint-venture contract for UHF television broadcast in July 1995.
In exchange for a contract, the station agreed to an escalating-fee payment plan and to broadcast only news program during prime time [ 7 pm to 9 pm].
In 1999, the station invoked the clause to petition the PM’s office for a review of its concession fees and when the PM’s office refused to negotiate the contractual revision, the station appealed for mediation by the arbitration board.
In January 2004, the board ruled in favor of the station, ordered the PM’s Office to pay Bt20 million in damages to the station. The damages were calculated from commercials that Channel 11 took away.
The board approved the station’s request to revise its programming. The station would be allowed to include entertainment during prime time and could cut its news content from 70 percent to no less than 50 percent.
The station’s concession fees would be revised either as flat rate of Bt230 million per year or a new charge of 6.5 per cent of annual revenues before tax, depending on which was higher.
The PM’s Office petitioned the Central Administrative Court to overturn the arbitration ruling.
The lower court overruled the arbitration board. It said the clause empowering the station to revise the fees was void because its inclusion had no proper sanction and its content altered the contract as approved by the Cabinet.
The station appealed to the high court that the PM’s Office had in effect wavered its right to question the clause because it did not question the mediation process nor the mandate of the arbitration board.
The higher court ruled that even though the PM’s Office failed to contest the validity of the clause before the appellate review, this did not change the fact that the clause was inserted improperly at the station’s prodding.
Under relevant laws on state private joint ventures, the clause was deemed invalid and unenforceable. The arbitration board had no legal basis for its ruling.
Furthermore, the mediation and subsequent administrative litigation were centered on the handling of airwaves allocated for television broadcast. Since airwaves are public property, the related issues are deemed to have a public impact.
Under the arbitration law, courts are empowered to review the mediation process if relevant issues have implications to society. This gave the lower court its jurisdiction to overturn the arbitration decision.
And the high court agreed with its verdict.
Void on alcohol ad ban
The Council of State invalidated the regulation to ban all forms of alcohol advertising on TV and radio 24 hours a day. The regulation, scheduled to be effective on January 3, 2007 was submitted by the Food and Drug Administration as part of a campaign to curb alcohol consumption under 9 measures initiated in November by Minister of Public Health Mongkol na Songkhla.
The first measure is a push to hike the tax on rice whiskey and beer, a ban on duty-free liquor and the separation of alcohol drinks from the Free Trade Agreement.
The second measure is to reduce people’s access to alcohol by limiting the production of alcoholic drinks and the issuing of distribution licenses and placing warning pictures on labels.
The bid to control alcohol advertising- and eventually stop it completely- was listed as the third measure, while the fourth was to introduce an alcohol control act.
The fifth was to establish alcoholism clinics inside provincial and district hospitals. The sixth was to support the use of alcohol tax money in campaigns to reduce alcohol consumption and prevent problems stemming from drunkenness.
The seventh was to push for alcohol controls to be an important policy of provincial and local administrations and the eight to support the anti-alcohol campaigns and alliance network.
The ninth measure is to support research and knowledge management to support control measures and evaluate implemented ones.
Alcohol was listed in the top three causes of death in Thailand and the Central Institute of Forensic Science reported that most people killed in road accidents were found to have a high level of alcohol in their blood.
However, alcohol ad is being ban between 10pm to 5am under the Public Relation Department’s enforcement.
Autonomous universities are decentralize
Prime Minister Surayd Chulanont said during an academic conference at King Mongkut’s Institute of Technology, Lad Krabang, that the country’s university administration needed to be decentralized but he would not ask the university to go autonomous unless they were willing and ready.
Previously there were series of protest from representatives of several university students on the push of Education Ministry to autonomy university through submitting six university draft bills to the National legislative Assembly. They reasoned the tuition fees would be raised until students from poor family are unable to afford.
Education Minister Wijit Srisa-arn, in respond to the protest, explained that the government was only proceeding with works left pending by the previous administration. The bills were initially scheduled for deliberation by the Parliament before the September 19 coup and now the NLA was installed to function in its place. It is the duty of universities to foster a better understanding of the issue among their students if they hoped to become autonomous. University autonomy gives more flexibility in administration which accelerates academic development.
However, two universities draft bills, Silpakorn and Ubon Ratchathani, were withdrew from the cabinet for reconsideration by the university administrators.
TRT and Democrat cases will be heard separately
The Constitution Tribunal ruled to split its hearing into alleged electoral fraud involving five political parties into two separate cases- one dealing with Thai rak Thai and two small parties and the other relating to the democrats and another small party.
The five parties face dissolution if convicted of fraud. In the Thai Rak Thai case, the charges centre on the alleged bankrolling of Thai Ground and Pattana Chart Thai parties to contest the April 2 election. An auxiliairy charge will focus on the tampering of party membership records to meet candidacy qualifications.
For the Democrat case, the litigation will focus on an alleged attempt by a Democrat executive to frame the Thai Rak Thai. The gist of the prosecution argument is that Sathit Wongnongtoey encouraged two electoral candidates from the Democratic Progressive Party to join the race in order to set the stage for a frame up, for even though he knew Thai Rak Thai had paid the two candidates, he kept quite about it.
Hearing on the Thai Rak Thai case will be commence at 10am on January 16. Subsequent sessions will be convene every Tuesday morning until the case is completed.
Hearing on the Democrat case will start on January 18 at 10am. Subsequent sessions will take place every Thursday morning till the end of the inquiry.
Defence team for the five political parties are expected to submit their respective lists of witnesses by December 12 and the tribunal will allow public prosecutor and defence lawyers for Thai Rak Thai and the Democrat to examine evidences of the cases on January 3 and 4 respectively.
Road closed by Buddhist mob
A mob of more than 200 Buddhists gathered on December 27 on route 410 in Tharn To district of Yala province demanding the state officials to strict to the law when capturing any suspectant involved in the southern violence. Previously, the officials arrested a person suspected of killing a police officer and his son but the suspectant was released after a mob of Thai Muslims gathered in front of Tharn To district health station.
The Buddhists were dissatisfied by the soft action and demanded state officials to be more strict to the rule of law.
12 female administrators targeted
Minister of Social Development and Human Security announced that the ministry in 2007 will promote increase of 12 per cent female members of the Tambon Administration Authority [ TAO] in regards to current figures of 6 per cent.
Revenue chief faces civil code charges
The National Counter Corruption Commission [ NCCC] on December 7 resolved to indict Revenue Department director-general Sirote Swasdipanich and four other senior officials on criminal and disciplinary charges for allegedly failing to tax Bhanapot Damapong, who acquired 4.5 million shares of Shin Corp as a “gift” worth Bt738 million.
The decision follows the Assets Examination Committee’s [ AEC] primary ruling in November that Bhanapot, a brother of Khunying Pojaman Shinawatra, had to pay Bt546 million in tax for the Shin Corp shares he accuired in 1997 from a domestic aid of the Shinawatra family.
NCCC chairman Panthep Klanarongran said the commission had found grounds to believe that Sirote, then deputy director-general of the Revenue Department and four other officials failed in their duty to tax Bhanapot. The NCCC will submit their investigation file to the attorney-general for prosecution.
After the NCCC indictment was sent to the Ministry of Finance, minister MR Pridiyathorn Devakula appointed a panel to consider the five accused officials of alleged disciplinary offences in accordance with the Civil Service Directive Act 1992, Article 82, 85 and 98 and it was ruled that they all were fired without a pension fund. However, they could appeal to the Civil Service Commission.
More schools to be with local authority
Secretariat-general of the Office of Basic Edication Commission Khunying Kasama Varawon stated the local authority benchmark for transferring of public schools to be under supervision will be reduced, from 2.70 to 2.10 for secondary school and from 1.50 to 2.10 , in order that more schools will be able to be transferred in accordance to the decentralization policy.
Southern violence caused by injustice
Prime Minister Surayud Chulanont in his address to the Al Jasira Television broadcasting in Malaysia on December 9 and subsequently on other 80 Muslim countries said the causes of violence in the three southern provinces of Thailand were from social injustice and the government is solving by sending teachers and students to study the Malaysian system. He also said the new constitution will focus on decentralization of power to the local people.
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