Political system of Thailand

The Garuda , the official state symbol of Thailand

The Kingdom of Thailand has been a constitutional monarchy since 1932 . According to the last constitution of 2007, state authority comes from the people and is exercised by the king through the three branches of legislature , executive and judiciary .

The constitution was partially repealed after the military coup on May 22, 2014 and replaced a month later by an interim constitution enacted by the military junta, the “National Council for the Maintenance of Peace”. The legislative power then exercises the National Legislative Assembly with 220 members selected by the military and appointed by the King. The king has a right of veto .

The government consists of the Prime Minister, elected by the National Legislative Assembly and appointed by the King, and the ministers appointed by the King on the proposal of the Prime Minister. The prime minister is the coup leader General Prayut Chan-o-cha , who also heads the National Council for the Preservation of Peace and has special powers under the current martial law . His government consists mainly of active and retired military personnel.

The military also selected the 250 members of the newly created National Reform Council, which is to work out proposals for changes in the areas of politics, administration, law and justice, local administration, education, economy, energy, health care, the environment, media and society.

A 36-member committee is tasked with drafting a new constitution. Its members were selected in part by the National Reform Council (20 members), the National Council for the Maintenance of Peace (5 members plus the Chair), the National Legislative Assembly and the Cabinet (5 members each). The draft constitution drawn up by this committee must be approved by the National Reform Council and signed by the king (who has the right of veto). A referendum , however, is not planned.

The courts and the so-called “independent constitutional organs” continue to exist under the terms of the junta. However, a military tribunal was also created, which the junta believes should be responsible for all security-related cases. The role of the king is expressly excluded from the repeal of the constitution.

In its 2015 annual report, the US organization Freedom House rated political rights in Thailand as 6 and civil liberties as 5 on a scale from 1 (best) to 7 (worst) . That means that the country is to be regarded as unfree. Up until the coup in 2014, it was still “partially free” with a rating of 4 in both categories and, since the parliamentary elections in Thailand in 2011, it was considered electoral democracy , that is to say as a fundamentally functioning, if not completely free democracy.

As a result of the coup, civil rights and political activities are severely curtailed. Gatherings of more than five people are prohibited, and the news media and the Internet are censored. The leaders of political parties and movements have been temporarily detained.

Below the article describes the political system under the repealed 2007 constitution:

monarchy

King Bhumibol Adulyadej (2003)

The Constitution of Thailand says that violence comes from the people and that the King of Thailand exercises this violence through the three branches of legislative, executive and judicial. The King of Thailand, Bhumibol Adulyadej (Rama IX), who died on October 13, 2016 , ruled from 1946, making him the longest-standing monarch in the world. He enjoyed the highest recognition in the population, also and especially as a result of his years of tireless efforts to improve the situation of many sections of the population. As head of state he had a certain influence on the gears of politics, even if he could hardly influence day-to-day politics.

The Privy Council advises the monarch . He can choose the members of the Privy Council at will. The king is head of the House of Chakri , which was founded by King Rama I in 1782. Its official seat is the Grand Palace in Bangkok , in fact the royal family initially lived in the Chitralada Palace in Bangkok.

legislative branch

Organization of the Thai government

The Thai government's legislature, the National Assembly, was constituted in 1932 according to the provisions of Thailand's first constitution and met for the first time on June 28, 1932 in the Ananda Samakhom Throne Hall. The National Assembly consists of two chambers, the House of Representatives and the Senate, which both meet in the Bangkok Parliament Building.

House of Representatives

The House of Representatives was first formed in 1932 and has been active in various ways for the legislature of Thailand since then. The women's suffrage was introduced 1932nd The chamber includes the time (2011) 500 members from political parties in Thailand , who are elected directly by the people, said the German Bundestag Applied D'Hondt method is used. In the parliamentary elections in Thailand in 2011 , 375 seats were distributed to directly elected representatives of the constituencies and 125 to nationwide party lists.

senate

The Senate of Thailand was first formed in 1946 and has served as a bulwark of the country's military and social elite for most of the time. The Senate currently has 150 members, 75 of whom are from the provinces, one from Bangkok. The other 74 are appointed to the Senate by the selection committee.

The senators may not belong to any political party, have not held a public office or a mandate in the five years prior to the election, or be members of active politicians. You must be born in Thailand, be over 40 years old and have a university degree. The members are appointed for six years. The Senate is assigned the function of an elitist supervisory body that oversees “ordinary” party politics. This takes account of the widespread distrust of elected politicians and parties.

The Senate has the right to remove members of the government, members of parliament, judges, public prosecutors and members of the independent constitutional organizations from office if, according to investigations by the National Anti-Corruption Commission, they are guilty of corruption, unusual wealth, misconduct or abuse. A three-fifths majority is required.

executive

prime minister

Office of the Prime Minister of Thailand

Since 1932 the head of government has been the prime minister, usually the leader of the strongest party in the House of Representatives. According to the Constitution, the Prime Minister is first elected by the House of Representatives and then confirmed by the King.

The prime minister heads the cabinet as the executive government. In addition to guiding official government policy, he also has the right to appoint and replace members of the cabinet. He represents Thailand abroad and the government domestically. His residence is at Ban Phitsanulok in Dusit , Bangkok.

cabinet

Judiciary and legal system

Legal system

Thai law is a mixture of traditional Siamese and European civil law , which is in part due to the legal advisers of King Chulalongkorn (Rama V, r. 1868 to 1910), who were supposed to help create a modern legal system in what was then Siam. Traditional Thai law is based on the Hindu-Brahmanic legal conceptions of the Khmer Empire , Angkor . There is no evidence of evidence in Thai law , and defamation and libel are (as in most European countries) criminal offenses, not just civil offenses .

dishes

Supreme Court of Thailand (Bangkok)

The judiciary is divided into four parts, with (1) the civil courts, whose levels below the Supreme Court correspond to the administrative division of the country (see above), (2) the administrative courts, (3) a separate military court and (4) the constitutional court.

The Thai judiciary is generally considered to be independent, but there are occasional cases of corruption . By law, all citizens are equal in court and before the law, which is apparently also respected in everyday life.

Civil courts

Civil courts make up the largest number of courts in the country. They are divided into three instances: the courts of first instance, the appeal courts and the Supreme Court of Thailand.

Administrative courts

Administrative courts were first set up in Thailand in 1997 to initiate or prepare mediations between citizens and government agencies. Two instances are responsible for administrative jurisdiction: Administrative courts of the first instance and the Supreme Administrative Court.

Military tribunal

The Military Tribunal is responsible for civil and administrative cases affecting the military.

Constitutional Court

In 1997, the Constitutional Court of Thailand was set up to handle cases involving the country's constitution. Since then, the Court of Justice has gained great influence, with much controversy arising. In 2006 and 2008 in particular, political blockades were broken, but this did not happen to everyone's satisfaction.

"Guardian Institutions"

In response to the 1997 Constitution experience, which allowed Thaksin Shinawatra to gradually control all political institutions during his reign, the 2007 Constitution introduced so-called independent constitutional organizations. These are supposed to watch over the elected politicians, who are often assumed to be selfish, and to limit their power. These bodies are the Election Commission , the three ombudsmen, the National Anti-Corruption Commission and the Court of Auditors. Its members must all be independent; like the constitutional judges, they are chosen by selection committees, confirmed by the Senate and appointed by the King. Since the heads of the “guardian committees” in turn participate in the selection of the appointed (non-elected) senators, the relationship between these institutions is somewhat circular.

Administrative division and local administration

Thailand is a unitary state . There are two systems of territorial division: provincial administration and local administration.

The units of the provincial administration are hierarchical and centralized. They primarily serve the nationwide uniform implementation of requirements of the central government. In this context, Thailand is divided into 76 provinces ( Changwat in Thai ; จังหวัด ), which in turn are divided into 877 amphoe ( อำเภอ ; 'districts' or 'counties') and 7255 tambon ( ตำบล ; 'subdistricts' or 'municipalities') and almost 75,000 muban ( หมู่บ้าน ; 'village communities' or 'villages'). The capital Bangkok is an administrative unit of its own and is not subject to the system of provincial administration.

The local government units, on the other hand, have greater autonomy and democratically elected bodies, elected by the respective residents. In this system there are 76 provincial administrative organizations (one per province), 2,283 thesaban ('municipalities', which are further subdivided into “large cities”, “cities” and “small towns” depending on the size of the population) and 5,492 tambon administrative organizations for the rural communities that do not belong to any thesaban. The capital Bangkok and the city of Pattaya are special local government units .

Individual evidence

^ Thailand - Freedom in the World 2012. Report by the Freedom House Organization (2012, in English, last accessed November 8, 2012).
^ Jad Adams: Women and the Vote. A world history. Oxford University Press, Oxford 2014, ISBN 978-0-19-870684-7 , page 437
↑ Tom Ginsburg: Constitutional Afterlife: The Continuing Impact of Thailand's Postpolitical Constitution . In: Icon - International Journal of Constitutional Law. Vol. 7, No. 1, 2009, p. 102.
↑ Art. 270-274, Constitution of the Kingdom of Thailand from 2007.
↑ Tom Ginsburg: Constitutional Afterlife: The Continuing Impact of Thailand's Postpolitical Constitution . In: Icon - International Journal of Constitutional Law. Vol. 7, No. 1, 2009, p. 92.

literature

Mark Askew (Ed.): Legitimacy Crisis in Thailand. Silkworm Books, Chiang Mai 2010.
Piengpen Butkatanyoo: Thailand. In: Herbert M. Kritzer (Ed.): Legal Systems of the World. A political, social and cultural encyclopedia. Vol. 4: S-Z. ABC-CLIO, Santa Barbara CA u. a. 2002, ISBN 1-57607-231-2 , pp. 1614-1620.
William Case: Democracy, governance, and regime cycling in Thailand. In: Public Governance in Asia and the Limits of Electoral Democracy. Edward Elgar Publishing, Cheltenham / Northampton MA 2010, pp. 211-231.
Michael Kelly Connors: Democracy and National Identity in Thailand (= Rethinking Southeast Asia 2). Routledge Shorton, London a. a. 2003, ISBN 0-415-27230-0 .
Aurel Croissant : East Asia. In: Defective Democracy. Vol. 2: Regional analyzes. VS Verlag, Wiesbaden 2006, pp. 163-293. In particular section “Thailand: from the 'bureaucratic polity' to defective democracy”, pp. 209–226.
Aurel Croissant, Jorn Dosch: Parliamentary elections in Thailand, March 200 and January 2001. In: Electoral Studies. Vol. 22, H. 1, 2003, ISSN 0261-3794 , pp. 153-160.
Claudia Derichs: Corruption, Collusion and Nepotism? Elections in Southeast Asia. In: Electoral systems and types of elections. Political systems and regional contexts in comparison. VS Verlag, Wiesbaden 2006, pp. 239-257.
Federico Ferrara: Thailand Unhinged. Unraveling the Myth of a Thai-Style Democracy. Equinox Publishing, Singapore 2010.
John LS Girling: Thailand. Society and politics. Cornell University Press, Ithaca NY 1981, ISBN 0-8014-1130-0 .
Kevin Hewison (Ed.): Political Change in Thailand. Democracy and participation. Routledge, London / New York 1997.
Duncan McCargo : Thailand. In: Countries at the Crossroads. A Survey of Democratic Governance. Rowman & Littlefield, Lanham MD / Plymouth 2008, pp. 667-690.
Ruth McVey: Money & Power in Provincial Thailand. NIAS Publishing, Copenhagen 2000.
Clark D. Neher (Ed.): Modern Thai Politics. From village to nation. Revised Schenkman Books, Cambridge MA 1981, ISBN 0-87073-916-6 .

Web links

Statistics of the provinces, counties, municipalities and villages of Thailand ( Memento from May 20, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) (in Thai)

[1] Thailand - Freedom in the World 2012. Report by the Freedom House Organization (2012, in English, last accessed November 8, 2012).

[2] Jad Adams: Women and the Vote. A world history. Oxford University Press, Oxford 2014, ISBN 978-0-19-870684-7 , page 437

[3] Tom Ginsburg: Constitutional Afterlife: The Continuing Impact of Thailand's Postpolitical Constitution . In: Icon - International Journal of Constitutional Law. Vol. 7, No. 1, 2009, p. 102.

[4] Art. 270-274, Constitution of the Kingdom of Thailand from 2007.

[5] Tom Ginsburg: Constitutional Afterlife: The Continuing Impact of Thailand's Postpolitical Constitution . In: Icon - International Journal of Constitutional Law. Vol. 7, No. 1, 2009, p. 92.