Bangkok: Keep an eye on whether the election collusion case of the Senate will be considered a special case or not. This afternoon, will the collusion in the election of the Senate be a special case or not? 'Phumtham' revealed that the EC will forward the matter to the DSI itself, saying that the special case board will consider the facts and will definitely not harass.
According to Thai News Agency, to accept it as a special case, it must receive votes from the Special Case Committee or Special Case Board of not less than 2/3 of the existing 22 committee members or 15 votes. For the Special Case Board, there is Mr. Phumtham Wechayachai, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Defense, as Chairman, and Pol. Col. Thawee Sodsong, Minister of Justice, as Vice Chairman, with 20 other qualified committee members.
If the meeting resolves to accept it as a special case (2/3 votes or no less than 15 votes), the next step will be to announce it in the Royal Gazette, following the procedures for accepting special cases under the Special Investigation Act, along with informing the EC that the DSI has accepted the case as a special case. The EC will then proceed with consideration according to Section 49 of the Organic Act on the Election Commission B.E. 2560 to see what its opinion is.
The DSI will then appoint a special investigation team to take charge of this case, with the participation of the public prosecutor. The investigation will proceed according to the procedure, i.e., calling the relevant persons for questioning and informing them of the charges, with a time frame of 1 year as required by law.
If the investigation finds any wrongdoing, the case will be summarized and sent to the prosecutor. If it is found that EC officials or government officials are involved, the case will be forwarded to the NACC within 30 days. The NACC will then consider whether to take action on its own or hand it over to the DSI to take action.
Mr. Pakornwut Udompipatsakul, the opposition chief whip, has an opinion on this matter, questioning the work of the Election Commission, asking whether it works quickly and equally in every case. In the past, there were many cases where the Election Commission worked very quickly, but there were many other cases that the Election Commission pretended to forget and took a long time to work on. Mr. Pakornwut even made a comparison, saying that if the Election Commission worked like this, using AI instead would be better.