New Senate set to hold 2-day Senate meeting as usual

Parliament, The new Senate has scheduled 2 Senate meetings as usual, every Monday and Tuesday of each week. Reporters reported that today's Senate meeting was chaired by Mr. Mongkol Surassajja, President of the Senate. After the Senate meeting acknowledged the royal command to appoint the President and Vice President of the Senate, the meeting considered urgent matters and set the date and time of the Senate meeting, referring to the previous Senate meeting, which scheduled the Senate meeting two days a week, Monday and Tuesday. This was because on Wednesday and Thursday there was a House of Representatives meeting, which would be broadcast live on Parliament TV, making it impossible to set the date for the Senate meeting on those days. Therefore, Mr. Mongkol consulted the Senate meeting to determine the date and time of the Senate meeting as usual, as has been done in the previous session, which is to hold Senate meetings 2 days a week, every Monday and Tuesday, starting at 9:30 a.m. Therefore, the next S enate meeting should use the date and time as previously announced. Dr. Premsak Piayura, a member of the Senate, expressed his congratulations to the President of the Senate and the Vice President of the Senate who were graciously appointed. He proposed changing the Senate meeting days to Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday. He reasoned that the Parliament currently has two large meeting rooms, which are separated between the House of Representatives and the Senate, so there is no problem with the meeting rooms. The second reason is that members all have their own offices. He saw that the working days were changed from 3 days out of 7 days and the committee meeting was increased to 4 days out of 7 days. Therefore, he thought that the meeting days should not be set in the same way. and referring to the Senate meeting on Tuesday, from what was previously followed, felt uncomfortable. There was a questioning meeting on the day of the Cabinet meeting, causing ministers to be unable to answer questions, resulting in the Senate not having the opportunity to question the executive branch, therefore proposing to add a meeting on Wednesday to be able to raise questions. 'The meeting date was set to coincide with the Cabinet meeting. The Prime Minister or any minister would sacrifice time from the Cabinet meeting to attend the Senate meeting, which is impossible. But last time, there was no problem because the Prime Minister appointed the Senators himself. Therefore, they could have raised their eyebrows and turned their eyes, so they did not come to answer. But this time, it is different. All the Senators come from 20 professional groups. There are questions from the public. To have them raise a topic and the Prime Minister not come to answer like the previous parliament, I think it is not appropriate,' said Dr. Premsak. While Pol. Lt. Gen. Boonchan Nuansai, a member of the Senate, disagreed, reasoning that the original meetings on Monday and Tuesday were appropriate, citing that there must be a committee meeting, in which one person can be a member of two committees. Therefore, he believed that the committee meeting should be held on Wednesday, and suggested that the executive committee be asked questions on Monday instead. Mr. Nirat Yophakdi, a member of the Senate, as a former member of the Senate, stood up to debate and saw that after this, there will be many bills entering the Senate meeting and it will require the approval of those holding positions in independent organizations. Therefore, there are many tasks and he saw that the Senate meeting for 2 days, Monday and Tuesday, is sufficient. There are 21 committees and not many subcommittees. With the current limitations of more than 20 committees and subcommittees, there will be a total of about 100 committees. There used to be a problem that in the main meeting room, it was necessary to run around before all the senators could attend the meeting because they were busy with the meetings of various committees, making the meeting room look empty. He saw that working to sho w the determination to work for the people, so he saw that broadcasting the meeting live for the people to know was important. Therefore, he saw that the Senate meeting for 2 days was appropriate. The Senate meeting voted 164 to 24 against, 5 abstained, and 2 did not vote. Dr. Prem's motion to have the Senate meet 3 days a week, Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, was rejected. The meeting concluded that it agreed to have the Senate meet every Monday and Tuesday, 2 days, starting at 9:30 a.m. Source: Thai News Agency