By Thai Newsroom Reporters
PRIME MINISTER SRETTHA Thavisin will very likely survive an impeachment lawsuit in the Constitutional Court tomorrow (Aug. 14), partisan sources confirmed today.
The prime minister, attached to the Pheu Thai under de facto party boss Thaksin Shinawatra, has been largely expected to be acquitted tomorrow of all charges earlier filed in court against him for having allegedly committed a severe breach to the constitution and code of political ethics, according to the partisan sources who only spoke on condition that they not be identified. Srettha will very likely survive the legal battle, no matter if a favourable ruling of the nine judges of the Constitutional Court may be unanimous or not, they said.
The prime minister’s contentious act by which he had named a notorious former lawyer who had been previously hired by Thaksin a minister attached to the Prime Minister’s Office earlier this year would likely be deemed by the Constitutional Court judges as sort of “an inadvertent, innocent error,” thus acquitting him from the impeachment charges, the partisan sources said.
Only if found otherwise guilty as charged, the Pheu Thai-attached prime minister would be impeached by law and be immediately deprived of his prime-ministerial status whilst a caretaker prime minister would be named to run the country on temporary basis until a new head of government has been named by a majority of MPs.
Pheu Thai partisan officials and those at Government House had busily prepared schedules for the besieged prime minister to keep him dutifully preoccupied, regardless of a court verdict to be delivered tomorrow on his impeachment case, the sources said.
The prime minister told reporters he will not attend tomorrow’s court session because, he said, he will be tightly scheduled to work at Government House. Prommin Lertsuridej, a right-hand man for the de facto Pheu Thai boss and concurrently secretary to the prime minister, will attend the court on behalf of the prime minister.
Srettha had been accused by a group of 40 former senators of severely perpetrating the coup junta-designed charter and code of political ethics by naming Pichit Chuenban, the notorious former lawyer personally close to Thaksin and a former convict, the portfolioless minister.
According to the plaintiffs, the Pheu Thai-attached prime minister could have been well aware of Pichit’s previous stigma for lack of professional integrity and proven dishonesty after he had been charged with involvement in a scandalous handout of two million baht in cash payoff literally contained in food bags for Supreme Court administrative officials in 2008 and subsequently sentenced to six months in jail.
The prime minister had defended himself with submitted affidavits to court, saying he had earlier consulted with the Council of State for legal matters pertaining to the contentious naming of the notorious former lawyer who had finally resigned under pressure.
But the plaintiffs had held the questionable act on the part of the prime minister as an inappropriate fait accompli for which he could possibly have been impeached by court.
Meanwhile, the prime minister confirmed today (Aug. 13) no cabinet reshuffle will occur as soon as later this month no matter if he might possibly be found guilty as charged and legally impeached or not.
Nevertheless, since the first cabinet lineup last year, all Pheu Thai members of cabinet had been covertly named by Thaksin whilst Srettha, quietly pushed to power by the de facto Pheu Thai boss’s sister/fugitive former prime minister Yingluck Shinawatra, had passively given a nod, according to the partisan sources.
Thaksin had clandestinely played a pivotal part in the dumping of the now-dissolved Move Forward from a coalition government, setup of the Pheu Thai-led one and allocation of cabinet portfolios among coalition partners after he had returned home from 17 years in self-exile abroad.
Importantly, the smooth naming of the former real estate mogul as elected prime minister under the Pheu Thai tickets following last year’s general election had been allegedly earlier agreed upon in hush-hush fashion between the billionaire, de facto Pheu Thai boss and the ultra-conservative powers-that-be.
Earlier sentenced to a royal pardon-curtailed, one-year jail term for a few accounts of power abuses perpetrated during his previous premiership, Thaksin is scheduled to be a legally free man on Aug. 22.
The deposed prime minister had never spent a single day behind bars and instead been given double-standard privileges at Police Hospital for a six-month period for mystery-shrouded “critical illnesses” which many of his critics had categorically called a fake-out.
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Top and Front Page: Prime Minister Srettha Thavisin. Photos: Thai Rath
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