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As the title of this video suggests, we are discussing what can really only be described as "Thai Bill of Rights" and I got to thinking about this making this video when I read a recent article from the Bangkok Post, bangkokpost.com, the article is titled: Anand calls for charter based on people's rights. Quoting directly: "Former Prime Minister Anand Panyarachun has called for a new Constitution to be drawn up to ensure full democracy and people's fundamental rights. He said there have been few positive changes in terms of people's rights and the call for basic rights has not yet been answered in Thai society."

Yeah, it is an interesting one. In the United States I think a lot of Americans take the Bill of Rights for granted and sort of just kind of view it as being a foregone conclusion. It very much was not if you go back and read things like The Federalist Papers and the various correspondence from the folks that actually drafted the documentation associated with the Declaration of Independence, Articles Confederation later than US Constitution and finally the Bill of Rights itself, you'll see that there was some serious debate. One of the big ones with respect to a Bill of Rights was the notion that it would create the presumption that all the Rights were within the four corners of that document meaning that by laying it down on paper it sort of automatically then excluded in the other rights that weren't explicitly mentioned and that was a real concern. Ultimately that was dealt with in things like the 9th and 10th amendment although honestly I think people ignore that more than they ought to these days, especially in jurisprudence. The point being I sort of understand that notion.

In the era in which we are living today I think I would myself prefer to have a sort of Bill of Rights, a Charter of Rights, to use the former Prime Minister's term or maybe how Bangkok Post said it about; it is sort of a Charter of Rights so we don't run in these problems that frankly we have been in the last 2 years where there is all this vagueness about what people are and are not allowed to do, what they have a right to do versus they don't have a right to do, that has been very murky. 

Now in my opinion here in Thailand that murkiness has frankly operated in favour of the freedom of Thai people, that has been my experience for the most part. The long story is I very much am in agreement with the former Prime Minister’s thinking on this. I think it would be a very good idea to have some delineated rights and responsibilities of citizens here in Thailand laid down so that everybody knows where they stand. That being said, whether this will happen remains to be seen. We'll certainly keep you updated on this channel as the situation evolves.