A system means power. The ruling system means the ruling power. The dictatorial system means then the ruling power belonging to a small group of people. The democratic system means the ruling power belonging to the people -- the majority in the society. Under the democratic system, the power belongs to the people, is used by the people, and for the people. It is necessary that the creation of democracy must begin with letting the people be the owners of the ruling power. It is not that the process must start with having a constitution first or using law to create democracy because that cannot be done.
Believing Law or Constitution
From the past to present, the Thai society has been misled into believing that law or constitution is needed as a tool to create democracy. However, the truth is that constitution and law are merely tools for safeguarding a regime of the powers that be who wrote the Constitution and laws. King Rama VII gave his absolute governing power to the Thai people and the People's Party, not to any individual or any group of individuals. But the mistake made by the People's Party was that it was unable to keep the ruling power for the people.
The power was seized by a small group of bureaucrats who have been using constitution as the tool to keep the power in their hands, causing damages to the country to the extent that the monarch was so depressed and eventually decided to abdicate the throne. Since then Siam, which was later renamed as Thailand, has been under the dictatorial system with the King as Head of the State. Constitution has been used as the tool to fool the people in the society that Thailand has been governed by the democratic system with the King as head of the State.
Exploitation of Constitution
Laws and constitutions have always been exploited by the minority. The ruling power has never been truly in the hands of the majority of the people. The people never have a taste of the absolute freedoms. Only the rulers have plenty of rights and freedoms and legal and political equalities.
The opportunity for the majority of the people to enjoy equality under the democratic system has not yet arisen. On the contrary, the high class in the society can do whatever they like. They can even legally occupy mountains, have more political rights, and enjoy more happiness than the people. They have everything more than the people in general.
Legality and International Justice
The rule of law and the principles of legality and international justice have not been put into practice in the Thai society. We enforce the law letter by letter without considering the purpose of the law and consequence of action. We tend to place little significance on reality and justice. For example, a husband was sentenced to two-year imprisonment without probation for giving consent to his wife to enter into an illegal contract.
A prime minister was removed from office for his appearance on a TV cooking show. In particular, the immediate problem is that all the Thai laws and constitutions were drafted and promulgated by a small group of people. Law enforcement is a tool of the powers that be to support their ruling regime rather than safeguarding justice in the society. Meanwhile, the majority of the Thai people still wrongly understand that abiding by the laws of the dictatorial regime is a symbol of democracy. That is totally wrong. People are always forced to bow to dictatorial laws.
Birth of New Law
It is impossible for a dictatorial regime to write a law for the benefit of other people. "A law will serve only the class of the people who wrote it." This is a rule in this world. Therefore, a regime or power must come before law. Law does not give birth to power but power gives birth to law. Bad law can be changed. The sovereign power must belong only to the people in order to write a democratic constitution for the people. The law and constitution of a dictatorial regime can never bring about democracy.
The amendments to constitution of 2007 will have no meaning for the creation of democracy. Thai politicians and democracy fighters are therefore urged not to blindly serve bureaucraticism anymore. Please wake up from slumber and be conscious. Today we have joins hands to build up democracy so that the Thai society can survive. The last and very important factor for the building up of democracy is that the ruling power must belong to the people or is acceptable to the people.
People's Representatives
The principle is that government must be an elected government. The ruling power, including the legislative, administrative, and judicial powers, must be acceptable to the people. All of the abovementioned problems of the Thai democracy stem from the fact that the sovereign power does not belong to the people. In order to make the ruling power acceptable, the principle of voting or the so-called direct democracy must be applied in such forms as referendum or representative democracy or the election of representatives of the people. This is the principle of the elected government, which is acceptable to the people. The important point is that the people's representatives must enact laws to serve the people, not any particular group of individuals.
The government must serve the people. Courts must truly administer justice to the people. So far, the problems encountering Thailand were caused by the breach of the principle of ruling the country. For instances, the constitutional independent organizations can exercise the administrative power independently from the Legislative, Administrative, and Judicial Branches. Such a practice is considered as undemocratic because the people's sovereign power is used to push the ruling power into the hands of a small group of people. Any power independent from the sovereign power of the people is against the principle of democracy and has to be abolished. In the case of Thailand, the judicial power has not yet linked to the sovereign power of the people. The appointments of court presidents do not need approvals from the people's representatives in the upper or lower houses. Even the parliament cannot check and examine the legality and compliance with the rule of law of the court's adjudication of cases.
Favor of Defendant
Since courts are the examiners of other people, in principle, they must be examined to see if they use the power justly. For example, the court voted five to four in favor of sentencing former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra to two-year imprisonment without probation just because he had given consent to his wife to enter into an illegal contract in the case where there was no damaged party. The nine judges should be examined to see if they had complied with section 184 of the Criminal Procedure Code which required them to convene a meeting before casting their votes one by one.
The court's president was the last person to vote in the case. If the voting result was a tie, the court president was compelled by law to vote in favor of the defendant. Shouldn't the Thai court be checked to find out if it had made any mistakes? Is the exercise of the judicial power really free from external influence? A democratic court system must be accountable. In the future, it might be necessary to use the jury system so as to ensure democracy.
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