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On Wednesday, the Constitutional Court delivered its long-awaited verdict on Pita Limjaroenrat’s status as a Member of Parliament.Â
The Court decided that Pita is not disqualified from being an MP due to his retention of shares in iTV, since the company was not broadcasting media nor generating revenue from media operations when he ran for office. This is because Thai law prohibits MPs from holding shares in the media business on the rationale that MPs should not influence the media for their political agenda.
As the former leader of Move Forward Party, which won last year’s elections, and current chairperson of its advisory board, Pita remains influential in Thai politics and largely popular among Thailand’s electorate for his progressive proposals of reform. By extension, the Court’s decision on Pita’s fate is widespread.
Here are some key takeaways, lessons learnt, and reflections on the verdict.
First, amidst a wave of judicial decisions that have been described as ‘disturbing’ for the rule of law, this ruling is a positive and hopeful indication that the rule of law is present in Thailand. The Court assessed the de facto situation–namely, that the iTV television station has been defunct since 2007 and was not operating as a media company–and made the most logical legal outcome according to the facts of the case: that iTV was not a media company in fact, and Pita should not disqualified as MP for holding shares in it. This is consistent with a country that rules with a fair application of the law, where a court does not jump through convoluted legal loopholes to reach a certain, predetermined and perhaps politically motivated result.
Second, this decision should not be taken as an indication that the Court has relaxed or sided with the more progressive camp of Thai politics in any way. On the contrary, the Court emphasised that it rules strictly with the letter of the law: if Pita held just one share in an (operating) media company, he would have been disqualified. It did not matter if he held it in his capacity as manager or executor of his late father’s estate. One would think that just a share would be negligible and incapable of influencing the media according to the spirit of the law, much less in such capacity, but the Court was clear in rejecting these arguments.
This leads to the third takeaway: the case may perhaps deter politicians from exploiting technicalities by thinking the Court is on their side, but the Move Forward Party, or any party, should not count on it. The lesson that should have been learnt long ago since a similar case involving Thanathorn Juangroongruangkit, co-founder of the now-dissolved Future Forward Party, is that the party’s lawyers should do their due diligence to ensure that all laws related to running for MP are complied with. While today can be seen as a victory for Pita, it may have been a pyrrhic one: due to this ordeal, Pita has already been suspended as MP since July 2023, on the same day Parliament rejected his renomination as prime minister. Since then, he could not participate in Parliament; instead, he had to waste time, money and effort to defend cases like this–no matter how absurd the case against him may seem. This was not the first case, nor will it be the last.
Fourth, this case brought the role of the judiciary into question. In a system of government, the judiciary’s role is to interpret the law. While a judicial interpretation may be strictly to the letter of the law or a broad one to the spirit of the law, they all have to be within the bounds of the law. In that sense, the criticism towards the Courts on several recent cases may not all be entirely fair if it causes the Court to do mental gymnastics to reach a certain conclusion or interpret the law in a manner so as not to give effect to it. Courts have no power to amend the law; they can only apply them. If any criticism is to be made on the laws the Court is considering, including this one on the prohibition of owning media shares, it has to be directed towards parliament.
Lastly, there is still a long road ahead of Pita and the Move Forward Party. In this case, an interpretation of the facts and the law would lead to the natural conclusion that iTV is no longer a media company, and the Election Commission brought this complaint on a questionable technicality. But there are many more cases where the technicality is much less clear-cut. Pita’s victory in this case is shadowed by the looming verdict on January 31st against him and the Move Forward Party, on charges of attempting to overthrow Thailand’s system of constitutional monarchy with a democratic government with the king as head of state, by proposing to reform the lese-majeste law. And a ruling in Pita’s favour here does not promise anything; as Pita himself remarked after hearing the verdict, next week’s verdict is not related to this one.
If Thailand’s history with lese-majeste cases is anything to go by, then these charges are much more serious than the one Pita has just been cleared of. It is much more serious than the case that dissolved Move Forward Party’s predecessor, Future Forward Party, due to a violation of finance rules regarding an illegal loan. So if Thailand’s past is prologue, then Pita and the Move Forward Party have many more obstacles to surmount.