The nation's top three courts had urged the commissioners to step down, but they refused, former Constitution drafter Kasem Sirisamphan said.

He mentioned the case of Panya Tantiyavarong, former chairman of the State Audit Commission, who was sentenced recently to three years in prison for his involvement in the botched nomination process of the Auditor-General in 2001.

"The Election Commission [EC] shouldn't be stubborn. It should look at the [SAC] case. If they continue to ignore [the court's suggestion] they will be jailed," Kasem said.

Turning to the subject of the party-for-hire scandal, which has raised the threat of dissolution for at least two major parties if they are found to have violated the law, Kasem said any possibility of dissolution was a major issue.

However, he didn't believe it would come to that.

"As far as I know, we have not yet found evidence showing that any major party decided to hire small parties to contest the [April 2] election," he said. "If there must be a penalty, in my view it might be best not to dissolve the party but to punish senior party figures instead," the academic said.

Political academic Sukhum Nualsakul agreed with Kasem, saying if the EC members cling to their jobs they might be forced out.

Sukhum said he believed the new election scheduled for October 15 would go ahead as planned, but that it would not be organised by the current Election Commission.

Meanwhile, two Thai Rak Thai Party members are due to appear in court today to explain controversial remarks they made about a decision of the Administrative Court.

Former Buri Ram MP Sophon Phetsawang and former Chiang Rai MP Buasorn Prachamorn suggested last month that the Administra-tive Court had no authority to invalidate the April 2 election and that some Court judges were biased towards the Democrat Party.

The two were summoned by Central Administrative Court Judge Kamol Sakoldecha to explain their comments, which appear to constitute contempt of court.

If ruled guilty they could face up to a month in jail or a fine of up to Bt50,000.

Sophon yesterday said he would abide by the court's ruling, no matter what its decision.