Charter court won't rule on EC's poll queries
The Constitution Court yesterday rejected a petition for a judicial review of matters related to the forthcoming April 2 election, leaving the Election Commission (EC) out in the cold to tackle legal hurdles without guidance from the court.
"The court rejected the EC's petition because the three legal questions posed were speculative rather than related to an actual legal dispute," said court secretary-general Paiboon Warahapaitoon. The EC requested a judicial review after finding it impossible to fill all 500 House seats in the poll slated for April 2, because Samut Sakhon's constituency 3 has no qualified candidates. It asked the court for legal guidance as to whether it was empowered to call for a new round of candidate registrations before the day of the ballot. It also asked whether it should accept extra candidates in constituencies in which a lone candidate would likely fail to muster the support of 20 per cent of eligible voters, a figure required to endorse victory. The EC also asked whether it should allow the nomination of additional party-list candidates if it was evident that all of the political parties in a race combined could not fill the allocated 100 House seats. Reacting to the ruling, EC member Prinya Nakchudtree said his commission might have to make a number of unilateral decisions to facilitate the upcoming election and then deal with the legal consequences of its actions later.
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