ANALYSIS: There's no light at the end of the tunnel.
31/03/2011
Nattaya Chetchotiros
Bangkok Post
It will be a long bumpy road for the government in dealing with issues surrounding the minutes of the Thai-Cambodian Joint Boundary Commission.
A major hurdle came yesterday when the Constitution Court threw out a petition seeking the court's ruling as to the status of the JBC minutes.
The court reasoned the petition submission was not in line with the regulations of petitioning the court to give a final ruling on a particular dispute under Sections 190 and 154 of the constitution.
The court also said more steps would have to be completed in parliament before a request for the court to give a final ruling on whether the JBC minutes could be lodged properly.
Led by Democrat MP for Songkhla Sirichoke Sopha, a group of about 80 MPs jointly submitted the petition to the court through Parliament Speaker Chai Chidchob.
Mr Sirichoke, who is also a close aide to Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva, believes that since the minutes were signed by both Thai and Cambodian officers, the documents should be regarded as an international treaty under Section 190 of the constitution.
Before the court made its decision not to consider the documents yesterday, Mr Sirichoke still hoped the court would consider the petition and rule on the case to end arguments over the status of the JBC minutes.
The court decision to not consider the petition for the time being came as a major blow to the Foreign Ministry as well. The ministry wants the minutes of the three JBC meetings to be approved by parliament as soon as possible, to prove to Cambodia that Thailand was not dragging its feet over the JBC documents issue.
If the documents are still left without parliamentary approval, Cambodia will likely press ahead with its intention to use a multilateral mechanism to settle the border conflict.
The effort to seek parliamentary approval on the JBC minutes began in August last year. But the same problem of lacking a quorum happened over and over.
In deputy government chief whip Wirat Kalayasiri's view, the JBC issue itself was complicated and those MPs who might have failed to catch up with the development of the issue could not truly understand it.
And since it is also a political problem between the two nations, many members of parliament could easily be deterred by the assertion from the yellow shirt People's Alliance for Democracy that to acknowledge the JBC minutes would be tantamount to giving the Thai territory to Cambodia.
As a result, many MPs do not dare raise their hands to approve of the JBC documents, especially during a time when a new general election is expected soon.
Under the circumstances, the parliament's decision on the JBC minutes is likely to be delayed until the end of April because most MPs still do not understand the issue.
Neither do they realise what could be the possible advantages and disadvantages of approving the JBC minutes.
4 comments:
This is merely a gimmick to delay. There is no real will from the Thai government to solve Cambodian-Thai border as long as they wish to exploit this issue for their domestic politics. So who is the bad guy??? Who is the trouble maker??? for not allowing Cambodia to develop their own temple of Preah Vihear??? They are pretentious willing to go to war over something that never never ever theirs to begin with... and pull the whole community of ASEAN's image down with it.
7:30AM I agree with you 100 percent. You make a good point and a valid one.
there is no dispute territory,
there is no 4.6 square km in the international map. thai is crazily making this stupid map. let make a BKK map as belong to Cambodia.
it seem that thai are thief, they are all the nation of thief. they still others' s property in daylight. it seem that there is no good people in Thailand. it seem that they dont know white and black good and bad.
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