Senate speaker gets suspended jail term for self pay increase

The Criminal Court Wednesday found Senate Speaker Thiradet Meepian, another former ombudsman and former secretary-general of the Office of Ombudsmen guilty of malfeasance to issue a regulation to give themselves pay increase.

Thiradet and Poolsup Piya-anant, another former ombudsman, were given two-year suspended imprisonment while Pramote Chotemongkol, former secretary-general of the Office of Ombudsmen, was given a one-year-and-four-month suspended jail term.

The court found the three guilty of collaborating to issue a regulation to give themselves pay increase for Bt20,000 a month without authority. The court ruled that the pay increase needed to be approved by the Cabinet and enacted as a law by Parliament.

The Nation