The meeting among judges called earlier this week by the judiciary's committee reviewing the draft constitution also concluded that the proposal to get senior judges to participate in the ad hoc crisis committee's decision-making was unsound.

It remains to be seen if the judiciary's comments on the draft constitution will be taken into consideration by the Constitution Drafting Assembly, which is expected to make adjustments and finalise the draft in early July before it is put to a referendum in September.

The proposal to get the judiciary involved in the political decision-making process is symptomatic of Thai citizens' over-reliance on certain powerful institutions to solve problems that come with democracy - which boils down to how to govern themselves.

The military intervention that overthrew the corrupt Thaksin regime on September 19, 2006 helped solve the problem of how to remove a tyrannical but elected ruler. The people then expected the military junta to appoint an honest and competent government to administer the country and create a charter drafting assembly to draw up a perfect constitution for them. Now the constitution drafters and a large section of the population want the judiciary to have a greater say in the political process as well. This is supposed to make sure that the democracy to be restored through a free election later this year will turn out to be of the sustainable variety - without them, the citizens, having to lift a finger to make it work.

According to this line of thinking, because the present generation of senior judges appears to be honest and reliable, the judiciary should get to decide who should hold what offices in the key democratic institutions. The idea is that this will prevent the likes of deposed prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra from manipulating and corrupting the democratic system again.

They do not stop there. They want the judiciary to be on standby and to come to their aid - by making all sorts of political decisions for everybody - if anything should go wrong. In other words, too many citizens in this country are either too lazy or too cynical to want to participate in building and nurturing democratic institutions. They are too lazy to create an honest, efficient and accountable political system that is self-sustaining and based on the rule of law and the system of checks and balances between the administration, parliament and judiciary.

More and more people are beginning to realise that relying on certain military leaders who profess to be patriotic, honest and freedom-loving to restore full democracy may not be a very smart move after all. Already there is some inkling that the military coup will exact a high cost on society. This will become clearer in the foreseeable future. It is very likely that the military will continue to wield extra clout in Thai politics long after a new, democratically elected civilian government succeeds the interim Surayud administration.

Over-reliance on the military to make things right means the Thai public is allowing military leaders to have more say in politics, when in fact the military should mind its own business - which is to defend the country against enemies and to maintain national security.

Thailand's democracy will always be prone to failure if certain generals decide to pursue high political ambition and cling on to power. The adage "power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely" continues to hold true. We must build a good system instead of relying too much on individuals who come and go and may be susceptible to corruption. The judiciary's insistence on staying above politics must be respected and a valuable lesson must be learned from it.