Thai <\/a>court on Wednesday ordered the kingdom\u2019s most popular political party to end its campaign to amend the country\u2019s notoriously strict royal defamation law, dashing its supporters hopes for reform of the powerful monarchy.<\/p>\n\n\n\nThe Constitutional Court in Bangkok ruled the progressive Move Forward Party, which won the most seats in last year\u2019s election, violated the constitution through its campaign to amend the lese majeste law.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It ruled Move Forward and its leaders, including former prime ministerial hopeful Pita Limjaroenrat, sought to overthrow the constitutional monarchy through their actions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The ruling is considered a blow to the Southeast Asian country\u2019s reform movement and the millions of young people who delivered a crushing defeat to the conservative, military-backed establishment by voting for change.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And analysts say it opens the door for further prosecutions to be brought, which could ultimately see Thailand\u2019s most successful party at the last election dissolved, and bans and criminal charges levied at its leaders.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In its ruling, the court said many Move Forward lawmakers had campaigned to abolish the lese majeste law, face charges under the royal defamation legislation, or used their position to bail out others charged under it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The court ordered the party to \u201cstop any act, opinion expression via speech, writing, publishing or advertisement or conveying any message in other forms\u201d with the aim to abolish or amend the law.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The ruling could now ensure that no party or person would legally be able to push for amendments to lese majeste, known as Section 112, without violating the constitution.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThis would effectively mean that the lese majeste law would become untouchable,\u201d said Munin Pongsapan, associate professor at Thammasat University\u2019s Faculty of Law. \u201cThe only way to amend it would be to get rid of the current constitution and draft a new one that reduces the Constitutional Court\u2019s power and jurisdiction.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Munin added that such a ruling \u201cwould severely violate the constitution itself that it meddles with the parliament\u2019s sovereign legislative power.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Ahead of the verdict, Move Forward spokesperson Parit Wacharasindhu told CNN the ruling could have \u201cfar-reaching implications or place potential restrictions on the actions of parliamentarians and political actors going into the future.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
CNN: A Thai court on Wednesday ordered the kingdom\u2019s most popular political party to end its campaign to amend the country\u2019s notoriously strict royal defamation law, dashing its supporters hopes for reform of the powerful monarchy. The Constitutional Court in Bangkok ruled the progressive Move Forward Party, which won the most seats in last year\u2019s election, violated the constitution through its campaign to amend the lese majeste law. It ruled Move Forward and its leaders, including former prime ministerial hopeful Pita Limjaroenrat, sought to overthrow the constitutional monarchy through their actions. The ruling is considered a blow to the Southeast Asian country\u2019s reform… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":37384,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-37383","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news-in-english"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37383","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=37383"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37383\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":37385,"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37383\/revisions\/37385"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/37384"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=37383"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=37383"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=37383"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}