Transcript of the above video:

I wanted to go ahead and take a minute to go over some, what you could call Thai Political or Parliamentary News, mostly because I think the way things could play out over the next few months as they played out at the end of this past summer. The issue of dissolution and under what circumstances Parliament dissolution can occur may come to the foreground again as there seem to be some political machinations in play regarding the issue of dissolution.

I thought of making this video after reading a recent article from the Bangkok Post, bangkokpost.com, the article is titled: PM 'can still dissolve House'.  Quoting directly: "The Prime Minister retains full power to dissolve the House despite a no-confidence motion being filed, as there are steps to be followed before the motion can take effect, Deputy Prime Minister Bowornsak Uwanno said." Quoting further: "Weighing in on House Speaker Wan Muhamad Noor Matha's recent remarks, the Prime Minister cannot dissolve the House once the opposition files a no confidence motion, Mr. Bowornsak argued the speaker's interpretation was incorrect and inconsistent with long-standing Parliamentary practice. He said Mr. Wan, an experienced speaker who has previously handled multiple no-confidence motions, did not immediately accept or schedule such motions in the past when they contained flaws. Mr. Bowornsak cited House rules which say that once the Speaker receives a no-confidence motion from the opposition it must be examined. If there are problems, the Speaker must notify the mover within seven days before placing the motion on the agenda as an urgent item and informing the Prime Minister." So it's not like you just slap the Speaker's office if you will, you just hand him a copy of a no-confidence motion, and boom that's just considered perfected filing, and they move on, they go ahead and it sort of triggers that mechanism. What this person is saying, what Deputy Prime Minister Bowornsak is saying is no, there's time in between that because some of these filings can be, a motion to dissolve or excuse me not the motion to dissolve - I'll get to that in a moment - a no-confidence motion might have flaws on its face, it's not just automatically perfected when it's handed off to the Speaker of the House; that's what this person is saying. So, quoting further: "The process, he said, shows that a motion becomes effective only after it is verified as complete and properly entered into the Parliamentary agenda, followed by formal notification to the Prime Minister. He added that Section 151 of the Charter stipulates the House cannot be dissolved after a valid" - and I think the term 'valid' is important there; I'll come back to that - "no-confidence motion has been submitted, unless the motion is withdrawn or the Government survives the vote." 

Okay, so first thing, they go further in that article. I urge those who are watching this to go ahead and read it. They talk about the balance between the Government being scrutinized on the one hand - and that's sort of the mechanism that the no-confidence motion is - versus executive functions which that is representative if you will or that is manifest in the form of a dissolution itself. So they're talking about sort of two different things.

For those who are interested in my long form take on this information, it may not be a terrible idea if you're interested to email us, [email protected] and we will get you on the email list for the long form videos where I discuss all kinds of things, including local politics, regional politics, international affairs, geopolitics: how that has an impact on expat land and yes, issues that are near and dear to expat hearts like tax, like immigration and these kind of things. If you are interested in that, email us, [email protected]. While I'm talking my book, it's worth pointing out that my better half and I set up a restaurant here in downtown Bangkok, Pancake Palace is the name. As the name implies, it's breakfast anytime. But we don't just have breakfast, we have American diner style food. We have hamburgers, cheeseburgers, we have buffalo wings. Also, for you Americans out there if you enjoy American Sloppy Joe's, we have American Sloppy Joe's on the menu as well. So, if you are interested in that, links are in the description below. You can find us here in downtown Bangkok at Pancake Palace and we would love to see you. 

That said, circling back to this, it comes down to the issue of a valid no-confidence motion. So what they are saying is and there have been no-confidence motions in the past that have been flawed when they have initially been submitted and then they have sort of been rectified and then refiled if you will or admitted for perfection and then the filing was the perfected and at that point, the speaker’s office took notice of the fact that a valid no-confidence motion had been filed and therefore that forestalled dissolution, again, under this rule Section 151.

Again I point this out because as we move forward, there has been talk about Anutin the current Prime Minister may want to dissolve early. There's actually not a lot of benefit to him dragging out this Government in many ways. I could actually see him making a dissolution motion sooner rather than later. Now he's under a memorandum of agreement with sort of his I guess you could call it tacit supporters in the People’s Party that this thing will be dissolved in 120 days from his policy statement, essentially upon taking office or upon the Government being formed I should say, the Cabinet being formed I should say - but that being said, again it could be forestalled by a valid no-confidence motion but if you read in the paper that a no-confidence motion was filed, that in and of itself may not forestall disillusion, so that's the important point to grasp there. It's a bit of a fine point, but I think one that again folks playing at home if you will that are watching this, that don't really understand Thai politics, I think that's an important point. One that some might argue is semantic but it's not. It’s much like the situation involving the acting Prime Minister not having the authority to file a dissolution motion even though he tried to. People could have said, "well it's a semantic point between acting and not acting". No it wasn't. There's a difference between somebody who was on the slate to be Prime Minister, who was actually voted in by Parliament and somebody who is just taking on the role if you will in a stewardship capacity as an acting Prime Minister. Those are very different things, just like there are very different things between a filed no-confidence motion and a valid one, one that is un-flawed. It's important to point out. Again, substantively different. What we would call materially different in certain American legal vernacular. Quoting further: "The ban on dissolution, he said, cannot begin immediately upon filing -- otherwise, an incomplete or incorrectly filed motion could instantly strip the Prime Minister of his dissolution authority." Yeah, again good point. Quoting further: "He warned that such an interpretation would "disrupt the Parliamentary system" and contradict the speaker's own consistent past practices." Quote: "The prohibition on dissolving the House begins only when the motion has been checked for completeness, placed on the agenda, and formally communicated to the Prime Minister," Mr. Bowornsak said." 

So again, that is that interpretation of how this works; it's my understanding too. Now that being said, in these things I am a layman, I'm an observer as much as anyone in many ways, but I think it's important to point this out, much as I felt like it was important to point out the Council of State's opinion that came out during the acting Prime Ministership of Mr. Phumtham Wechayachai and immediately before that while Ms. Paetongtarn remained the suspended PM, Council of State basically said, "hey an acting PM can't dissolve the House; that's our opinion on the matter." And then later on, that was attempted, it didn't come off, and we saw things sort of recalibrate within Parliament and now we have the Government we have. Again, these small sort of rules of procedure can have a tremendous impact on the outcome of these rather important matters. So I think it's worth pointing out exactly what the nuance is here with regard to dissolution of the Parliament here in the Kingdom of Thailand.