Kanin Boonsuwan, 59, is regarded as one of Thailand's greatest experts on constitutional affairs, and he was among those chosen to draft the current charter back in 1997.

Given the current political and probably constitutional crisis, his perspective is often sought by the mass media.

Shortly after the February 24 House dissolution, Kanin was the first academic to propose that the April 2 polls should be postponed because the results would be incomplete and the new Parliament would not be able to open.

His prediction was made against the backdrop of the three former opposition parties' boycott of the election, resulting in an essentially one-party race by the ruling Thai Rak Thai Party (TRT).

After the Election Commission (EC) failed to fill all 500 seats, as required for the first House session, even after the April 23 by-election, Kanin suggested to the EC that it should nullify the polls and reschedule a new election between 60 and 90 days later.

But his advice fell on deaf ears, and a constitutional crisis now looms.

Kanin, who took his political-science degrees at Thammasat University and the University of Houston, says the 1997 Constitution was well written but abuses were inevitable so there should be proper amendments in due time.

"Political and constitutional reform should take place after we have a proper election and Parliament. I think the new polls should be held some time in July, after the state and royal ceremonies to mark HM the King's 60th year on the throne are over," he said.

Earlier this year Kanin was instrumental in drafting a petition on behalf of several civic groups seeking to revoke executive decrees privatising the Electricity Generating Authority of Thailand (Egat).

In March the Supreme Administrative Court ruled in favour of the plaintiff, resulting in the government's inability to list Egat on the stock exchange.

"I didn't do much publicity when I decided to stand for the Senate election in April, so I got just a few thousand votes, whereas Khun Rossana Tositrakul [of the Confederation of Consumer Organisations, which filed the Egat lawsuit] got more than 100,000 votes in the same Bangkok race," he laments.

Prior to the April 19 Senate election, the anti-Thaksin People's Alliance for Democracy (PAD) was very popular, especially with Bangkok voters. But Kanin declined an invitation to speak at one of its rallies.

"I thought I should not attend since the electoral law bars senatorial candidates from campaigning. Yet those rallies were powerful publicity events," he says.

Kanin's his first political stint began in 1979, when he was 32.

"I was a Chon Buri MP from 1979 to 1983, when General Kriengsak Chamanan was prime minister. In the general election two years later I was elected to represent a Bangkok constituency.

"I was also a deputy secretary-general of the Democrat Party from 1985 to 1986. In 1992 I was elected by a Chon Buri constituency.

"In 1996-7 I was involved in the drafting of the current Constitution. This charter is probably the best ever enacted in this country's 70-year history of democratic governance," Kanin says.

"The form is perfect. It bars non-elected premiers and requires MPs to quit if they're named Cabinet members, but it has been abused over the years to such an extent that we haven't had an effective check-and-balance mechanism. This is the number-one failure."

"Second, the protection of every citizen's basic civil rights as enshrined in the charter is still not really effective. For instance we've witnessed discrimination by law-enforcement officials such as the police.

"Third, the mass-media freedom protected by the Constitution has been infringed upon several times by sophisticated means on the part of the state and related parties.

"Though the government was not able to close down printing presses or radio and TV stations, other methods have been used to silence the press and critics, resulting in, for example, a number of multimillion-baht lawsuits against critics," he says.

Nophakhun Limsamarnphun