The Judicial Wall

NEED TO KNOW

The Judicial Wall

THAILAND

The ruling party in Thailand’s parliament, Pheu Thai, recently nominated Paetongtarn Shinawatra, the 37-year-old daughter of billionaire former premier Thaksin Shinawatra, as the Southeast Asian country’s next prime minister.

Usually, such an announcement would signal a resolution to political instability and the start of a new government. But Paetongtarn is taking over after Thailand’s Constitutional Court removed former Prime Minister Srettha Thavisin from office for appointing a cabinet minister who was a convicted criminal, contravening Thai law, reported Agence France-Presse.

Srettha’s removal also occurred a week after the Constitutional Court disbanded Thailand’s progressive opposition Move Forward Party, wrote World Politics Review. The party, which won the largest share of seats in parliament last year, saw its leaders barred from standing for office for 10 years, CNN noted.

The court disbanded Move Forward because its leaders have proposed amending the so-called “lèse-majesté” laws that outlaw criticism of King Maha Vajiralongkorn or proposing policies that might undermine the king’s authority as the country’s head of state, the East Asia Forum explained.

These moves are unpopular because many Thais feel the court is tipping the scales against Thai voters who want political and economic reforms, while defending military and business elites and the allies of King Vajiralongkorn.

Human rights activists say the court rulings are part of a pattern of unelected officials exercising too much power over elected leaders, the Associated Press reported. Since 2005, military coups, court rulings, or other maneuvers have prevented winning political parties from forming governments. Thavisin was closely affiliated with Thaksin Shinawatra, who was ousted in a 2006 coup, for example, wrote Time magazine.

“Elections are held in which voters voice increasingly clear demands for change, only for those to be denied by the royalist old guard that has dominated my country for generations,” argued Pavin Chachavalpongpun, a professor of Thai politics at Kyoto University, in a New York Times op-ed.

That old guard is represented by the court, wrote the BBC. “Thailand’s Constitutional court, which has dissolved 34 parties since 2006, has long been the principal guardian of the conservative status quo – at its heart is the monarchy, protected by a politically assertive military,” the broadcaster said. “Beyond that, unaccountable power is wielded by palace officials, senior judges, business tycoons, and military and police officers.”

Still, Move Forward, a party reborn from its previous incarnation previously Future Forward which was dissolved in 2020, has already become a new party, the People’s Party, the Associated Press reported.

But it faces new headwinds, again: The leaders of Thailand’s newest pro-democracy party are now being threatened by a new probe, one by the National Anti-Corruption Commission, which began an ethics investigation into 39 of its lawmakers that could see them cast out of the National Assembly over similar allegations that saw Move Forward dissolved, VOA reported.

Meanwhile, analysts at the Lowy Institute, an Australian think tank, were skeptical that Paetongtarn would be able to assert herself or disrupt these trends. They predicted instability, conservative forces retaining inordinate power behind the scenes of electoral politics, and few if any economic or political reforms.

Governance is suffering as a result. Srettha’s government, for instance, failed to enact meaningful legislation to improve the country’s economy by attracting foreign investment, while feuding with the Bank of Thailand over interest rates.

The royalists might want a weak prime minister. But years of repression often lead to trouble boiling over sooner or later, as it has in the past. Meanwhile, the use of the court for political ends won’t end anytime soon, analysts say.

“The issue of the monarchy has been used by those politicians who would like to ensure that they remain in power,” said Verapat Pariyawong, who teaches Thai law and politics at the University of London’s School of Oriental and African Studies. “It’s those people who rely on issues of lèse-majesté to attack parties like MFP or People’s (Party), so that dynamic will continue as long as … the Constitutional Court can rely on lèse-majesté to disband political parties.”

THE WORLD, BRIEFLY

Liar, Liar

PAKISTAN

Pakistani authorities arrested a 32-year-old man this week for allegedly spreading misinformation about the deadly stabbing that took place in the United Kingdom last month, an attack that sparked nationwide anti-immigrant riots across the country, the Washington Post reported.

Police have accused Farhan Asif, a freelance web developer based in the southern city of Lahore, of amplifying false information that incited the unrest in the UK. Asif is alleged to have used the website Channel3Now and its X account to falsely identify the attacker as a Muslim asylum seeker named “Ali al-Shakati.”

The original attack on July 29 involved a multiple stabbing at a Taylor Swift-themed dance class in Southport, northwest England where three children were killed, and 10 other people were injured. British police said the suspect, Axel Rudakubana, was born in the UK to parents with Rwandan heritage. He was 17 when he allegedly committed the attacks.

Asif has confessed to posting false information without verifying its authenticity. While Pakistani officials have taken him into custody, it remains unclear if the UK will request his extradition.

The false information resulted in violent riots across the UK, including attacks on hotels housing asylum seekers, mosques, and clashes with police.

More than 1,000 suspects have been arrested in connection with the riots and nearly 500 charged, according to the Independent.

Individuals involved in the riots are facing serious charges. Ex-serviceman Peter Beard for example was sentenced to two-and-a-half years in prison for his role in the unrest.

Unwanted Legacy

INDONESIA

Indonesian lawmakers on Thursday dropped plans to amend regional election laws after violent demonstrations gripped the country over the proposed revisions that critics say will undermine democracy in the Southeast Asian nation, Bloomberg reported.

Protests erupted in a number of cities, including the capital Jakarta where thousands of demonstrators attempted to storm the parliament and threw stones at police.

The controversy initially began earlier this week after the country’s Constitutional Court dismissed a legal challenge to the minimum age for candidates running for regional governorship.

Under Indonesian law, governorship candidates must be at least 30 years old, an age limit that the petition unsuccessfully sought to remove.

The court also made it easier for smaller political parties to nominate candidates by reducing the requirement to hold 20 percent of a local legislature.

But on Wednesday, parliament passed an emergency motion nullifying the court’s decision.

That move triggered widespread condemnation and Thursday’s nationwide protests. Critics said that the proposed amendments would have expanded the political influence of outgoing President Joko Widodo and his family. Specifically, reducing the age limit would have allowed Widodo’s youngest son, Kaesang Pangarep, 29, to run for the gubernatorial race in Central Java province, the Associated Press noted.

Following the unrest, Deputy Speaker of Parliament Sufmi Dasco Ahmad said the government has scrapped the plan to revise the law and will respect the Constitutional Court’s decision.

However, Sufmi added that the incoming lawmakers may still review the bill because there are aspects of it that need to be fine-tuned, prompting fears that lawmakers could push through the legislation.

Civil rights groups and pro-democracy activists hailed the government’s U-turn as a major win, while expressing concerns about Widodo’s presidency.

The outgoing leader has been accused of undermining the country’s democratic foundations and establishing a political dynasty.

Last year, he came under criticism after the Constitutional Court – then chaired by his brother-in-law Anwar Usman – allowed his eldest son, Gibran Rakabuming Raka, to bypass age restrictions to become the incoming vice president.

He leaves office in October because of term limits.

Out of Reach

FRANCE

A French court on Thursday rejected an appeal by a French-Vietnamese woman, who sought to sue Bayer-Monsanto and 13 other agrochemical companies for their role in supplying the highly toxic herbicide chemical Agent Orange and other chemicals used by the United States military during the Vietnam War, Politico reported.

The plaintiff, Tran To Nga, has sued the multinational and others for the supply of Agent Orange that was used during the war to destroy forests protecting communist Viet Cong fighters.

Nga herself was exposed to Agent Orange in 1966 when she was covering the war as a journalist. She claims to have suffered from a number of health issues attributed to the chemicals, including tuberculosis, cancer and Type 2 diabetes.

Her daughter, born in 1969, died of a heart defect at 17 months, and her other daughters and grandchildren also suffer from severe health problems.

In 2021, she lost an initial case when a French court ruled that the agrochemical companies were immune from prosecution because they were working on behalf of a sovereign government.

On Thursday, the Paris Court of Appeal used the same argument to reject her appeal, declaring the case “inadmissible” due to the companies’ immunity on jurisdictional grounds.

Despite the court’s decision, Nga vowed to continue the fight and plans to appeal to the Court of Cassation, France’s highest appeals court,

It is estimated that four million people across Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia were exposed to Agent Orange, 20 million gallons of which were dropped by US forces between 1962 and 1971, Agence France-Presse added.

The Vietnamese government has said the chemical caused birth defects in 150,000 children.

Observers said the case underscores some of the discrepancies over who has received compensation as a result of the use of Agent Orange.

While US military veterans, including those from Australia and South Korea, have been awarded compensation for the effects of the toxic herbicide, Vietnamese victims have not.

In 2005, a US court dismissed a case brought by Vietnamese victims of Agent Orange.

DISCOVERIES

Apocalypse Later

For over a century, astronomers have predicted that our galaxy, the Milky Way, will one day collide with another, Andromeda. Meanwhile, all studies have claimed that we will not live to see the grand spectacle as it will occur billions of years in the future.

Now, a breakthrough piece of research found that the merger might not happen at all – but if it did it would be in about 10 billion years’ time, and not five billion as previously projected. The odds are those of a coin toss, scientists said.

We still know too little about our galaxy and its neighbors to establish with absolute certainty what will happen and when, researcher Till Sawala and his colleagues wrote.

Their study added to a body of knowledge created in 1912 when astronomer Vesto Slipher remarked that the light emitted by Andromeda was blue-shifted – signaling movement toward Earth. In 2008, other researchers predicted that the merger should happen in five billion years.

However, to have more precise predictions, astronomers need a full picture that includes the speed of Andromeda’s stars, a complicated task given the galaxy’s distance, 2.5 million light-years away.

Two space telescopes, NASA’s Hubble and Europe’s Gaia, can help produce a more accurate map of Andromeda, the Milky Way, as well as two other galaxies in the vicinity: M33 and the Large Magellanic Cloud. All four are part of a set known as the Local Group.

Sawala and his team plugged data from both telescopes into simulations, revealing that the odds of the collision happening change depending on the inclusion of either M33 or the Large Magellanic Cloud.

In the first case scenario, there’s a two-thirds chance the collision will occur. But in the second, “the orbit of the Large Magellanic Cloud runs perpendicular to the Milky Way-Andromeda orbit and makes their merger less likely,” the study said. In all, it’s a 50-percent chance.

Nonetheless, Local Group galaxies are bound to end up piled together. If the universe keeps expanding, the single galaxy they would form could become a lonely cluster of stars in a radius of billions of light-years, Science wrote.

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