Second Victory: Election Commissioners Jailed

Today (July 25 2006) the Criminal Court of Thailand sentenced the 3 election commissioners to a 4-year jail term and a 10-year ban on vote casting.

The people are rejoicing!!

The First Victory: The EGAT Verdict

March 23, 2006, will go down in history as another day when the power of the people victors over tyranny.

(From The Nation newspaper)

The Supreme Administrative Court ruled Thursday (March 23 2006) that the government's plan to list Egat Plc in the stock market was illegal due to flawed preparations and conflicts of interest in the committe in charge of listing preparations.

The Supreme Administrative Court revoked the two decrees that supported the Electricity Generating Authority of Thailand's privatization.

The court expressed their concerns over the formation of the committee that worked on the state agency's corporatization process, the improper hosting of public hearings, the power of the new entity after the privatisation, as well as the transfers of national assets back to the state after the privatization.

"The government has abused its power in privatizing the state enterprise," the court said in the statement.

The court also noted that the ruling of the case could affect other privatization plans.

The court did not address the issue whether the Egat privatisation was in conflict of the Corporatization Act but the court pointed out that the preparations leading to issuance of the two decrees were flawed.

The court spent about two hours in detailing why it believed the preparations for the privatization of EGAT were flawed.

Among other things, the court pointed out that Olarn Chaipravat, the chair of EGAT's corporatization committee, was not qualified for the job because he had conflict of interest. The court also ruled that there were attempts to hide the conflict of interest of Olarn.

The court said Olarn was vice president of Shin Corp with had conflict of interest with EGAT.

The court also ruled that the government failed to properly carried out arrangements for public hearings before going ahead to issue the decrees.

The court noted that Parinya Nuwalai, chairman of public hearing committee, was not qualified for the job because at that time he was vice minister for Natural Resources and Environment Ministry and thus holding a political position, which could affect neutrality.

The court also noted that although the government held five public hearings the government failed to advertise the hearings for three consecutive days in advance to allow people to register for taking part in the hearing. The government also failed to place advertisements of the hearings on TVs and radios.

The court room was filled with cheers once the ruling is read as protesters led by the People's Alliance for Democracy hailed the court's decision.

The suit was filed by the Foundation for Consumers and eight other people.

The court room was packed by about 200 people including many EGAT employees.