Democrats file for Somsak's removal

Democrats file for Somsak's removal

Democrat MPs on Wednesday petitioned the Senate Speaker for the revocation of Somsak Kiatsuranont's status as an MP for allegedly violating the constitution and meeting regulations during the joint sitting of parliament to deliberate three charter amendment bills on April 1-4.

The petition was signed by 128 Democrat MPs, led by Thaworn Senneam and Wirat Kalayasiri, citing Section 270 of the constiution. It was submitted to Senate Speaker Nikom Wairatpanich through Surachai Liangboonlerchai, the first deputy senate speaker.

In the petition, the Democrats said Mr Somsak, as Parliament President, called the vote in the first reading on the three charter amendment bills, ignoring the opposition's protest they had about eight scheduled hours left for the debate and more than 10 MPs were waiting their turn to speak.

This was in violation of Sections 125 and 137 of the constitution and items 47 and 45 of parliamentary meeting regulations.

After the vote on the first reading, Mr Somsak went ahead and ordered the scrutiny of the three bills be finished in 15 days, even though at the time the meeting was short of a quorum and the Democrats wanted the scrutiny period to be 60 days.

This violated Sections 125, 126 and 137 of the constitution and items 16, 17, 52, 59 and 96 of parliamentary  meeting regulations.

Mr Surachai accepted the petition. He said it would be sent to the Secretariat of the House of Representatives to verify the names of people supportng and then be returned to the Secretariat of the Senate. It would then be forwarded to the National Anti-Corruption Commission (NACC) for consideration.

The whole process would be completed in 15 days, he said.

If the petition was found to have grounds, the NACC would send it back to the Senate to begin the impeachment process, Mr Surachai said.

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