Bangkok, "Chaiwat" gave a statement for about an hour after sending a petition to the Constitutional Court again, asking for an investigation of evidence in the case of dissolving all new parties to be opened because the Election Commission rushed to draft the petition and did not wait for Move Forward to collect evidence. He said that the court still listened to only one side of the story, and the party lost the chance to fight. He confirmed that he did not criticize while the Constitutional Court will meet at 9 am tomorrow. Future Forward Building, Move Forward Party Office, Mr. Chaiwat Tulathan, MP of the party list and leader of the Move Forward Party, announced the progress of the case to dissolve the Move Forward Party after both parties, the petitioner, which is the Election Commission (EC), and the defendant, which is the Move Forward Party, have examined the evidence. This is the party's third press conference, taking 1 hour to announce. Mr. Chaiwat said that today, the Move Forward Party has sent a legal team to submit two petition documents to the Constitutional Court. Both petitions are petitions to dispute or argue against evidence that was examined on July 9, which is divided into two important parts. The first part, Warrant R., is a rebuttal or dispute of the evidence of the petitioner or the EC who filed the petition in the case file. And the second part, Warrant S., is a rebuttal or dispute of the evidence that is a document of the Constitutional Court, which has been brought into the case file. It is a document that has been used in previous cases or in the case where the Constitutional Court has ordered the Move Forward Party and Mr. Pita Limjaroenrat, MP of the party list and Chief Advisor to the Leader of the Move Forward Party, to cease their actions. Note R. Since when we examined the EC's documentary evidence, we found that the EC's documentary evidence clearly indicated that the process of filing a petition for the Constitutional Court to consider dissolving the party in this case was clearly unlawful. We therefore objected to requesting that the Constitutional Court open an investigation into the issues we disputed, including summoning witnesses to investigate the issues we disputed, and requested that the Constitutional Court request additional documents from the EC that were referred to as evidence, which have already been submitted to the case file. There was no new petition filed, but these issues are related. The previous case, the Constitutional Court, did not investigate the facts referred to in the evidence and documents, which gave the Move Forward Party no chance to fight in terms of the facts stated in these documents. Therefore, in the previous case, we missed the opportunity because we only listened to one side and the documents came from security agencies, namely the Royal Thai Police (RTP) and the National Security Council (NSC), which accused the Move Forward Party of being linked to the movement to repeal Article 112 of the Criminal Code in many cases. In this second pe tition, we have argued and requested that the Constitutional Court not accept documentary evidence that is not consistent with the facts, is merely an opinion or a false statement of facts, including requesting that witnesses related to the facts alleged in the documents be examined. As for whether there will be a lawsuit or a counter notification of Section 157, Mr. Chaithawat said that it is not yet an issue. At this time, we must argue and object in order for the court to open an investigation. When asked what the Move Forward Party would do if the Constitutional Court did not open the investigation, Mr. Chaiwat said that according to the law, the Constitutional Court has the discretion to open the investigation or not, to investigate in any way, or to call any witnesses. It is the Constitutional Court's absolute authority. However, we hope that in order for the consideration of this case, which has a severe penalty of up to the death penalty for political parties, there should be an investigation of the facts, including a full and complete debate on legal issues, in order to be fair to all parties and to be proportionate to the charges that have a penalty of dissolution of the party and the judgment of the party's executive committee. He emphasized that this is a different standard from the previous case, but if the Constitutional Court does not proceed with the investigation, we cannot do anything. As for whether the EC will be able to object in the same way that the Move Forward Party objected, I do not know. I do not know how the Constitutional Court will consider our objections after today. We will have to wait for the Constitutional Court's meeting. But I think that with the facts and reasons that we have explained, we hope that they will be substantial and important enough for the case. As for the case where the court previously issued a prohibition against criticism, Mr. Chaiwat pointed out that his statement this time did not criticize the Constitutional Court at all. He only announced the progress of what we found in examining the evidence and why today we went to file a petition to object or dispute the evidence, that's all. And he thought that he would not go along with doing what the Constitutional Court had warned. As for how the Move Forward Party will be able to explain that it did not overthrow the government, Mr. Chaiwat said that in fact, we have explained a lot, some of which were in Mr. Pita's first statement. However, because there were many issues, we did not go into details. In addition, the party's statement has already been released to the public. Importantly, we hope that the Constitutional Court will open an investigation before making a decision. Tomorrow at 9:30 a.m., the Constitutional Court will meet to consider all available evidence and information. The next step is to open a witness examination as requested by the Move Forward Party or to call a meeting to make a decision. Source: Thai News Agency
Monday, September 16, 2024