Constitutions and Thai Politics

Dr Thanet Aphornsuvan, Faculty of Liberal Arts,

Thammasat University, Bangkok, Thailand

            The history of a constitution is necessarily interwoven with the history and development of democracy, and more specifically, with the emergence of the concept of rule by law. The ability to implement a constitution and to guarantee its integrity presupposes strong social and political institutions. Although constitutions were occasionally put in practice by ancient regimes, they are, for the most part, of recent invention. Their fates remain bound to those of the political history of a given country, particularly with regard to the aspirations for democratic rule.

            The Thai constitution is no exception. Thailand was catapulted into a democratic, or at least a democratizing, period following the coup of 1932. The leaders of this coup were immediately presented with the dilemma of having to adapt the ideals of western constitutionalism to the realities of Thai society and politics: namely a highly stratified society with a large number of undereducated people and the concentration of political and economic resources in the hands of a small percentage of the population. Additionally the presence of the military in their capacity as ‘midwives’ of Thai democracy, although not initially perceived as an obstruction to the advancement of democracy, became increasingly problematic as they gained in strength throughout the Cold War period and beyond. In order to understand the Thai constitution, it is necessary to examine how it developed by drawing upon Thai ideas and adapting the western ‘ideal’ to Thai realities.

 The importance of constitutions in Thai history

             In the tradition and understanding of western constitutionalism, the constitution aims at the limitation and regulation of the government’s powers and the protection of private rights and liberties. The significance of the constitution in Thai political history and government is that it is not simply the highest law. Thai constitutions served as histories of political development and conflicts, and in terms of the law, they were the sum total, not the source, of the lesser and organic laws that existed prior to the promulgation of the constitutions. Reflecting the temperament of the times, the Thai constitutions therefore represented the realities of power relations in the process of Thai social and political development. The historic role of the constitution in Thai politics reflects its unique position in the continuity of the government from monarchical to constitutional monarchy regimes. Traditionally the government was first based upon paternal kingship in accordance with Buddhist political philosophy, in which the king was directly in charge of the administration of justice and the welfare of the people.  The paternal monarchy was eventually strengthened by the introduction of centralized administration in the Ayutthaya kingdom when the king assumed more of the role of the divine ruler following the practice of deva-raja in the Khmer empire, which had itself been influenced by Hinduism.  The dialectical relations between these two contradictory forms of government thus have characterized Thai political and social life; one is the personalized, informal clientship and the other is a bureaucratized and formal hierarchy.

             After the abolition of the absolute monarchy, the country had not been able to establish new institutions and customs to legitimize the transfer of power by force. In the old Thai government tradition, the palace coups and the use of force to overthrow or take over the king’s power was justified and legitimized by the Buddhist concept of merit and power. According to traditional beliefs, the righteous behavior of the leaders was a precondition for their possession of power. That meant that those who had power were thought to be good and deserving of it. But the legitimacy of a modern regime stems not only from the elaborate process of having constitutions, calling for new elections, appointing respectable figures in the governments, and declaring loyalty to the monarchy, but more so from the regime’s ability to maintain authority and retain power.

             The constitution thus was and is used to basically legitimizing the illegal means of changing of government, particularly by the use of forces like coups and to limit or curb the power of its opponents.

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