The Reality-Show Style of Constitutional Drafting
The next six months from now will be a crossroad for Thai politics and society as a 35-member Constitutional Drafting Committee prepares the constitutional draft, which will be made known to the public upon its completion. After that, a referendum will be held for the public to approve or disapprove the document.
Thailand will soon have a new constitution, which hopefully will close some of the practical loopholes left by the 1997 version. However, from another perspective there are still grounds for suspicion or uncertainty as to whether the 35-member committee will draft the Constitution for the benefit of the pubic majority and not to please particular groups of people.
There has been much criticism from several quarters that these 35 constitutional drafters were not representatives of the people, but were mostly proxies of academics and technocrats in the Thai society. Most importantly, it was feared that these drafters would be subject to the influence or order of the Council for National Security or other politicians with whom they hobnob with, in such a way that results in a non-transparent constitution that benefits certain interest or political groups in the future.
In my view, the constitutional drafting process should not take place behind closed doors among the hands of only 35 people.
The question is, therefore, how to enable the general public to understand the substance, structure, and objectives of the Constitution in all its articles and sections, which will give more depth to the expression of opinions and the referendum voting to be more than an expression of approval or dislike based solely on feelings, just-received information, or instruction by local influentials in the provinces.
Constitutional drafting process should facilitate public knowledge, understanding, and participation. In other words, it should based on the good governance principle of transparency.
Such transparency is possible. And the most feasible way to create transparency is through the use of mass media. It should thus be proposed that constitutional drafting be broadcast like a reality show during the next six months. It would be the live broadcast of opinions and causes and effects expressed and discussed by the Constitutional drafters.
The broadcast of the drafting process will be a new phenomenon for the Thai socio-political scene, as it will create a new channel of public education about the constitution, the highest law in the country, through one or more television channels such as cable TV, Channel 11, or the parliamentary channel, etc.
Through this means, the public will learn about political reform concepts from the debates among the drafters and be able to help reflect on whether the new constitution can help solve Thailandrsquo;s socio-political problems, or on how the structure and responsibilities of the legislative, the executive, and the judiciary should be balanced. They will also learn about the origins and substance of the various articles and sections in the Constitution, which will have the indirect effect of galvanizing public learning in Thai politics and administration through live broadcast.
In addition, the broadcast should allow the people to express their political opinions or make enquiries and recommendations through SMS messages to the program that will appear on the TV screen and be compiled and submitted to the drafting committee as input for their constitutional deliberation.
Most importantly, the continuous live broadcast will compel each constitutional drafter to show accountability in his or her expression of opinions, particularly the objectives and motives behind the sections and articles, and to demonstrate that whether or not there are adequate pragmatic or academic grounds to support those opinions.
I believe that the live broadcast of constitutional drafting process will turn a new leaf in constitutional drafting history by producing one of the most transparent texts, and especially by allowing the public to learn and express their opinions about the various constitutional sections and articles, so that the new constitution will be truly a peoplersquo;s constitution.
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2007-02-09