08 May 2020
Health Before Rights and Liberties: Thailand’s Response to COVID-19
On 13 January, Thailand was the first country outside of China to confirm a COVID-19 case. Prayuth invoked the Emergency Decree on Public Administration in Emergency Situation on 26 March 2020. At present, new cases are down to a single-digit figure per day. However, the 2005 Emergency Decree may not be the appropriate tool, as it has misled the public’s understanding of the pandemic and allows the government to employ unnecessarily harsh measures, leading to over-criminalization and arguable abuses of power. Continue reading >>
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20 March 2018
A Constitutional Court Silencing its Critics
After twenty years of operation, the Thai Constitutional Court has finally got its first statute that lays out details of procedural rules. The Organic Act on the Procedure of the Constitutional Court B.E. 2561 (2018) is long overdue. A decade of political chaos had prevented the Parliament from passing the law until the military took power in 2014. The junta-appointed National Legislative Assembly expected it to facilitate the Court through the foreseeably turbulent future. Ironically, turbulences might come from the law itself. Continue reading >>31 January 2017
New Constitutional Amendment Proposal in Turkey: A Threat to Pluralistic Democracy!
Turkey will hold a referendum on a fundamental constitutional reform, probably in April. The designed political regime is neither parliamentarism nor presidentialism. Although the government calls the new political regime as a “Turkish type of presidentialism” with a populist discourse; in reality, the new regime will bring a kind of “delegative democracy”, which is seen usually in the South American, sub-Saharan African and in central Asian countries. Continue reading >>
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28 January 2017
The Final Trick? Separation of Powers, Checks and Balances, and the Recomposition of the Turkish State
The Turkish parliament has recently passed constitutional amendments that will, pending the public referendum in spring 2017, set aside decades of parliamentary system tradition. Presumably aimed to repair the dysfunctions of the current regime and to respond to the need of a “stronger Turkey”, the proposed draft does not only eradicate the principle of separation of powers but rebuilds the state according to the interests of ruling groups, without much consideration being paid to the overall integrity of the system and long term implications. Continue reading >>
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24 January 2017
Brexit in the Supreme Court: An Opportunity Missed?
For all that this case has been written-up in the media as a ‘defeat’ for the government, this was a case in which the Supreme Court passed up a significant opportunity to compensate for the UK’s newly imbalanced constitutional framework. Continue reading >>03 November 2016
Is the US Constitution to blame for the Rise of Donald Trump? An Interview with SANFORD LEVINSON
"My view is that things will get worse before they get worse. Assuming Clinton wins, there will be tremendous relief and elation on November 9th. If the Republicans keep the House, on November 10th there will be the realization that this election is the most important election in our lifetimes only because of the rejection of Donald Trump. He is a real menace, of course. But in terms of an election that really breaks the logjam, no: It will be more of the same. More of this sick feeling that the national government is really incapable of responding to challenges except if Presidents can push the envelope of executive power, which will just fuel the rage of the opposition party." Continue reading >>
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03 November 2016