The Constitutional Court has suspended Justice Minister Tawee Sodsong from overseeing the Department of Special Investigation (DSI), while it considers allegations that he abused his authority by allowing it to look into vote-rigging in last year’s Senate election.
Pol Col Tawee was also ordered to step away from serving as deputy chairman of the DSI special cases committee, which gave the go-ahead to an investigation that has angered dozens of senators.
The court ruling on Wednesday followed a petition submitted in March by a group of 92 senators, asking it to rule on whether Deputy Prime Minister Phumtham Wechayachai and Pol Col Tawee should lose their jobs for interfering in the Senate election process.
The petition seeks to determine if the ministers’ actions violated the constitution, particularly Article 170, Paragraph 1(4), in relation to their role in approving the special investigation.
The senators have accused both ministers of abuse of power for using the DSI to undermine the independence of the Election Commission, which has been conducting investigations of its own.
The court ruled unanimously that there was no reasonable suspicion to justify suspending Mr Phumtham, who oversees national security issues as a deputy prime minister.
However, it found there were reasonable grounds to suspend Pol Col Tawee, who had authority over civil servants at the Ministry of Justice, including the DSI, from duties related to his supervision of the DSI and the special cases committee.
The suspension will remain in effect until the court makes a final ruling in the case.
The Election Commission and the DSI last week served summonses on six of 53 senators being investigated for vote-rigging.
The DSI said this week that it has identified as many as 1,200 people who might have been involved in one way or another with the manipulation of the election last year.
It has been widely speculated that the allegations are directed against “blue bloc” senators, a reference to a large group linked to the Bhumjaithai Party, the second-largest party in the government coalition.
The final Senate vote on June 26 produced some highly unusual results, notably a disproportionate number of winners from provinces where Bhumjaithai is strong electorally.
