Translation:Amendment (No 1) of 2554 Buddhist Era to the Constitution of the Kingdom of Thailand
Volume 128Issue 13A
Royal Gazette
4 March 2554
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Amendment (No 1)
of 2554 Buddhist Era
to the Constitution of the Kingdom of Thailand
Bhumibol Adulyadej R
Given on the 3rd day of March 2554 BE
Being the 66th year of the present reign
His Majesty King Maha Bhumibol Adulyadej is pleased to give a Great Royal Command that it be announced as follows:
Whereas it is appropriate to amend the Constitution of the Kingdom of Thailand;
Therefore, He is graciously pleased to enact the following Amendment to the Constitution of the Kingdom of Thailand:
Section1.This Constitution is called the Amendment (No 1) of 2554 Buddhist Era to the Constitution of the Kingdom of Thailand.
Section2.This Constitution shall enter into operation from the day following the day of its publication in the Royal Gazette onwards.
Section3.The dispositions of sections 93, 94, 95, 96, 97, and 98 of the Constitution of the Kingdom of Thailand shall be repealed and replaced by the following dispositions:
“Section93.The House of Representatives is composed of five hundred Members, of whom three hundred and seventy-five are Members elected on a constituency basis and one hundred and twenty-five are Members elected on a party-list basis.
Elections of Members of the House of Representatives shall be conducted by means of direct and secret ballot. A different type of ballot paper shall be used for each basis of Members of the House of Representatives.
The criteria and procedures for elections of Members of the House of Representatives shall be set out in the Organic Act on Election of Members of the House of Representatives and Procurement of Senators.
In the event that a position of Member of the House of Representatives has fallen vacant for any reason and no Member of the House of Representatives has yet been elected to fill the vacant position, the House of Representatives shall only be composed of the existing Members of the House of Representatives.
Subject to section 109(2), in the event that anything causes the number of the Members elected on a party-list basis to reduce from one hundred and twenty-five during the term of the House of Representatives, the Members elected on a party-list basis shall only be composed of those who remain.
In the event that any incident causes the number of the Members of the House of Representatives from any general election to be less than five hundred but their number is still over ninety-five per cent of the total number of the Members of the House of Representatives, that number of Members shall be deemed to constitute the House of Representatives, but proceedings shall be executed to have the Members of the House of Representatives in the full number as provided in this Constitution within one hundred and eighty days and they shall be in their positions for the remaining term of the House of Representatives only.
Section94.In electing Members of the House of Representatives on a constituency basis, the persons having the right to vote in the election shall only be able to vote for one candidate per each constituency.
In calculating the standard number of people per one Member, the calculation shall be based upon the number of the people throughout the Country as evidenced in the civil register announced in the last year before the year of the election, balanced with the number of three hundred and seventy-five Members of the House of Representatives.
In calculating the number of the Members of the House of Representatives that each province should have, the number of people per one Member as calculated in accordance with paragraph 2 shall be balanced with the number of the people of such province. Any province of which the people are below the standard number of people per one Member according to paragraph 2 shall be able to have one Member of the House of Representatives. Any province of which the people are above the standard number of people per one Member shall be able to have one additional Member of the House of Representatives per every number of people which reaches the standard number of people per one Member.
After the number of the Members of the House of Representatives for each province has been obtained in accordance with paragraph 3, if the number of the Members of the House of Representatives is still less than three hundred and seventy-five, the province with the highest residue left from the calculation under paragraph 3 shall have one additional Member of the House of Representatives, and Members of the House of Representatives shall be increased in accordance with the mentioned procedures for the respective provinces with the next highest residues left from the calculation under paragraph 3 until the number of three hundred and seventy-five is completed.
Any province which can only elect not more than one Member of the House of Representatives shall be deemed to be a constituency, and any province which can elect more than one Member of the House of Representatives shall be divided into constituencies in the number corresponding to the number of the Members of the House of Representatives that it should have, with each constituency being able have one Member of the House of Representatives. And in the event that any province is divided into more than one constituency, the areas of the constituencies must be divided in such a manner that makes them adjoin each other and the numbers of the inhabitants in the constituencies must be close to each other.
The votes shall be counted at the voting stations, and the results of the counting of votes by the voting stations shall be sent to the constituency for summing up before being announced publicly at a single place at the constituency as designated by the Election Commission only, save where there is necessity specific to a locality, in which event the Election Commission may designate the counting of votes, the summing up of votes, and the announcement of the results of the counting of votes to be done otherwise, subject to the provisions of the Organic Act on Election of Members of the House of Representatives and Procurement of Senators.
Section95.In electing Members of the House of Representatives on a party-list basis, the persons having the right to vote in the election shall have the right to vote for lists of candidates produced by political parties, in respect of which the persons having the right to vote in the election shall have the right to vote for only one of the lists and the Country shall be deemed to be the constituency.
Section96.The lists of candidates according to section 95 shall be produced by political parties, one per each party, with each list containing not more than one hundred and twenty-five candidates, and the lists shall be filed with the Election Commission before the day of opening the recruitment of candidates in an election of Members on a party-list basis.
After any political party has filed a list of candidates, if it appears that, before or on the election day, anything causes the number of party-list candidates of the political party to reduce from the number on the list filed by such political party, the list of that political party shall be deemed to only contain the existing candidates and, in such event, the House of Representatives shall be deemed to only contain the existing Members of the House of Representatives.
Section97.A political party shall produce a list of candidates for an election of Members of the House of Representatives on a party-list basis in the following manners:
(1)the list of candidates must fairly contain names of candidates from all regions, and regard must be had to opportunities, suitable proportion, and equality between women and men;
(2)a name on the list must not correspond to that on the list produced by another political party and must not correspond to the name of a candidate on a constituency basis according to section 94; and
(3)the names shall be arranged in order of their numbers.
Section98.In calculating the proportion of candidates on the list of each political party who are to be elected, the votes obtained from the whole Country by each political party shall be summed up and calculated in order to divide the number of the persons to be elected from each political party into the proportion directly in relation to the aforementioned number of the summed up votes. In this respect, the candidates named on the list of each political party shall, in order of their numbers on the list of the political party, be respectively elected in accordance with the standard score thus calculated. However, this shall be subject to the criteria and procedures provided in the Organic Act on Election of Members of the House of Representatives and Procurement of Senators.
The provisions of section 94, paragraph 6, shall also apply mutatis mutandis to the counting of votes in elections of Members of the House of Representatives on a party-list basis. In this respect, the Election Commission may require that there be the preliminary summing up of votes at provinces first.”
Section4.(5) of section 101 of the Constitution of the Kingdom of Thailand shall be repealed.
Section5.The dispositions of (2) of section 109 of the Constitution of the Kingdom of Thailand shall be repealed and replaced by the following dispositions:
“(2)in the event that it is a position of Member of the House of Representatives elected on a party-list basis, the President of the House of Representatives shall announce, by publication in the Royal Gazette within seven days from the day the mentioned position fell vacant, that the person whose name is next in order on the list of that political party be elevated as a Member of the House of Representatives to fill the vacancy, save where there is no name left on the list to be elevated to fill the vacancy, in which case the party-list Members of the House of Representatives shall only be composed of those who remain”.
Section6.Subject to section 7, in the initial period, the provisions of sections 93, 94, 95, 96, 97, 98, 101(5), and 109(2) of the Constitution of the Kingdom of Thailand as amended by this Constitution shall not be applicable to elections of Members of the House of Representatives until the day of entry into operation of the royal decree requiring a general election of Members of the House of Representatives to be held for the first time after promulgation of this Constitution.
As long as the provisions of the Constitution of the Kingdom of Thailand as amended by this Constitution have not entered into operation in accordance with paragraph 1, the provisions of the mentioned sections prior to being amended by this Constitution and the Organic Act on Election of Members of the House of Representatives and Procurement of Senators which has been enacted for the implementation of those provisions shall continue to be operative.
Section7.The National Assembly shall, within one year from the day of promulgation of this Constitution, finish considering and giving approval to the amendment to the Organic Act on Election of Members of the House of Representatives and Procurement of Senators so as to implement this Constitution.
In the event that the execution of paragraph 1 cannot yet be finished and a general election of Members of the House of Representatives is required, the Election Commission shall have the power to issue for application to such election an announcement designating the criteria and procedures for elections of Members of the House of Representatives which conforms to this Constitution, and the provisions of the announcement of the Election Commission shall apply in place of the parts of the provisions of the Organic Act on Election of Members of the House of Representatives and Procurement of Senators which are contrary or repugnant to this Constitution.
Countersignature
Abhisit Vejjajiva
Prime Minister
Note: The grounds for promulgation of this Amendment to the Constitution of the Kingdom of Thailand are as follows: Whereas it is appropriate to amend provisions of the Constitution of the Kingdom of Thailand in order to bring elections of Members of the House of Representatives in line with the principles based upon fairness, to strengthen the democratic administration with a Monarch as Chief, and to enhance efficiency of the state administration, it is therefore necessary to enact this Constitution.
This work is a translation and has a separate copyright status to the applicable copyright protections of the original content.
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This work is in the public domain worldwide because it originated in Thailand and is a work under section 7(2) of Thailand's Copyright Act, 2537 BE (1994) (WIPO translation), which provides:
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I, the copyright holder of this work, hereby release it into the public domain. This applies worldwide. In case this is not legally possible: I grant anyone the right to use this work for any purpose, without any conditions, unless such conditions are required by law.
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