With all respect to a former assistant dean of Harvard Law School, I believe your article (Stephen B Young, “Court ‘did its duty’ over charter change”) is based on the assumption that the root of the power of the Constitutional Court of Thailand is similar to that of the U.S. Supreme Court. If this assumption was correct, I would actually agree with you that the courts have the power to review the actions of the government since, as you pointed out, the courts need to "stand between the people and the selfish abuse of power by those in government".

However, you ignored or probably were ignorant of the fact that the process of appointment of the Thai Constitutional Court is very different from the US Supreme Court.  In the US, Supreme Court justices are nominated by the President and confirmed by the Senate.  In Thailand, of the nine Constitutional Court judges, five are appointed by the Supreme Court and the Administrative Court. The remaining four are appointed by a committee which formed of (1) the President of the Supreme Court, (2) the President of the Administrative Court, (3) the Speaker of Parliament, (4) the Leader of the Opposition in the House and (5) the President of one of the Independent Agencies (Constitution of Thailand B.E 2550, Article 204, 206).

Obviously, the leader of the opposition is not on the same side as the Thaksin government. How about the fifth committee member? The Presidents of all the Independent Agencies were appointed from the coup d'état. Suspicious. isn't it?

And how about the majority of the judges that play a big part in the appointment process? Probably Professor Young has ignored or probably not read enough about Thai politics for the last 8 years. The courts have sided with the opponents of the Thaksin Government over the years. In 2006, before the coup d’état, the courts (Constitutional Court and Administrative Court) clearly showed their political position by voiding the election creating chaos among Thais. Their actions included putting members of the Election Commission in jail. The Supreme Court even benefitted from the coup regarding the extension of judge's retiring age from 60 to 70 years old (Constitution of Thailand B.E 2550 Article 306).

This shows that the judges in the Constitutional Court are biased and have a tendency to rule against any Thaksin related government.

Finally, the ruling of Constitutional Court rejecting the constitutional amendment intending to make the senate entirely elected instead of being partly appointed is not a normal or neutral decision. It is a masterpiece of the Court to preserve its own power.  The President of the Constitutional Court is one of the five members of the committee which actually selects half of the Senate under the current system (Constitution of Thailand B.E 2550 Article 113). This decision is plainly a conflict of interest.

Whichever way one compares the Thai Constitutional Court and the US Supreme court, they are not the same. Not even close.

Best regards,

Chris Potranandana

LL.B. Chulalongkorn University.

GDip in Economics, University of Nottingham

LL.M. University of California at Berkeley