Thailand's Constitutional Court is set to make a pivotal decision on the political future of the leader of the country's most popular opposition party, Pita, in what is known as the iTV case. The court is evaluating whether to disqualify Pita over a minor 0.0035% shareholding in a now-defunct media company, a move that critics argue is politically motivated. The case has significant implications for Thai democracy, as Pita's party was previously blocked from assuming the prime ministership undemocratically. The court has also issued a warning against attempts to influence its impending judgment by discussing the case with the media.
The Thai military-backed establishment prevented the leading opposition party from taking power on the pretext of an electoral law violation that the constitutional court just rejected. The next possible pretext: it wants to allow criticizing the monarchy. https://t.co/YYNO5GqwgF
"It was obvious in retrospect that we couldn’t write about the Sensations Poppadoms judgment without accidentally becoming a tax blog." HMRC versus Predator: https://t.co/d69DFapsVJ
A watershed moment in Thai democracy where the consistutional court (not a neutral body) decides whether to bar the leader of Thailand's most popular political party (that was undemocratically blocked from PM) from politics over decades-old 0.0035% shares in a defunct media org. https://t.co/a6qT7Vhnol
A watershed moment in Thai democracy where the consistutional court (not a neutral body) decides whether to bar the leader of Thailand's most popular political party (that was undemocratically blocked from PM) over decades-old defunct 0.0003% shares in a media company. https://t.co/a6qT7Vhnol
Before announcing the verdict in Pita's iTV case, the Constitutional Court warned that the involved parties' actions in providing opinions to the media about the case were inappropriate, as it could be perceived as an attempt to influence the court's decision. #Thailand #พิธา… https://t.co/PM2jVHjC5v