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32 สรุปการประชุมวิชาการ
สถาบันพระปกเกล้า ครั้งที่ 23
ประชาธิปไตยในภูมิทัศน์ใหม่

Main topics:

1) People’s roles and platform of political institutions, in terms of their

structure and function.

2) Adaptation of the legislative and executive branches of government and
non-judicial oversight organizations to enhance law-making and policy

implementation to meet the diverse needs of the people.

3) Recommendations about legitimate and acceptable structure, roles, and
powers of political institutions.

Group Discussion 3

Judicial Activism: Judicature in Political Cases

From the time Thailand became a constitutional monarchy in 1932 until the
promulgation of the country’s second constitution in 1946, the unicameral Assembly
of the People’s Representatives had sole, absolute right to interpret the constitution

and allowed the parliament to oversee the government. However, there was no
effective mechanism to check the exercise of legislative powers. Accordingly,
the Constitution of the Kingdom of Thailand, 1946 established the Constitutional
Tribunal to control constitutionality of legislation. This change altered the landscape
for parliament’s exercise of its legislative powers, and ever since the power of

parliament has been limited.

Over 50 years later, the promulgation of the Constitution of the Kingdom of
Thailand, 1997 established the Constitutional Court to replace the Constitutional

Tribunal, and assigned the Constitutional Court to have the power and duty to
control the constitutionality of draft legislation, laws, and the exercise of power by
constitutionally-mandated organizations. But in the past 10 years, decisions of the
Constitutional Court have been criticized for exceeding constitutional power or

issuing rulings affecting government actions. As a result, many Thai scholars have
made proposals regarding the improvement of the jurisdiction or organizational
structure of the Constitutional Court.

However, such phenomena do not occur only in Thailand. An examination of

the exercise of judicial powers by constitutional courts or tribunals in foreign
countries found that many countries have tended to amend their constitutions in