Thai court removes PM and nine cabinet ministers
Thailand’s Constitutional Court yesterday removed the elected Prime Minister, Yingluck Shinawatra, and almost a third of her cabinet ministers for “abuse of power.” The anti-democratic ruling follows months of anti-government protests and legal chicanery aimed at installing an unelected “people’s council”—essentially a dictatorship backed by the military. ● Yingluck’s supposed crime was to transfer National Security Council chief Thawil Pliensri to another role in 2011 so that his place could be taken by Preiwpan Damapong, a former brother-in-law of Yingluck’s brother, ex-Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra. The nine cabinet ministers were removed for endorsing the transfer. The court admitted that Yingluck was within her rights to transfer Thawil, but asserted the decision was taken with a “hidden agenda” and not in accordance with “moral principle.” Yingluck’s removal was denounced by legal experts. Ekachai Chainuvati, deputy dean of law at Siam University in Bangkok, told the New York Times the ruling was “total nonsense in a democratic society” and an example of “what I would call a juristocracy—a system of government governed by judges.”