BANGKOK
Thailand's human rights commission is opposing a forced merger with the ombudsman's office amid fears that the junta-appointed committee drafting the country's new constitution may use the change to diminish its powers.
In a statement Thursday, the commission said that it had “different authority and work objectives” than the office of the ombudsman. It said its key duties were to protect people’s human rights based on the constitution and laws, while those of the office of the ombudsman were to hold state officials accountable.
The proposed merger would force the commission and the ombudsman's office “to play roles without the appropriate expertise,” the statement added.
The planned merger was announced last Saturday by Bowornsak Uwanno, head of the constitution drafting committee, who said that charter drafters had agreed to merge the two agencies into one organization because they served similar functions.
But Thai and international civil society groups see the combining of the two as an attempt to weaken the commission, so that the agency will be unable to efficiently protect people’s rights after the new constitution is enacted at the end of 2015 or 2016.
The groups fear that the military will continue to dominate the political landscape even after a new elected government is in place and will not want to be challenged on human rights issues.
U.S.-based rights group Human rights Watch roundly criticized the proposed merger on Wednesday, saying in a statement that the commission and the ombudsman “serve very different purposes” and that the new constitution should ensure that the rights agency is “independent and impartial” rather than being merged with another office.
“Instead of making a weak human rights agency even weaker, the constitution drafting committee should be seeking ways to ensure a broad-based, effective, and independent membership,” Brad Adams, the Asia director for Human rights watch said in a statement.
According to the constitution drafting committee proposal, the proposed joint agency - under the name of Office of the Ombudsman and Human Rights Protection - would be made of 11 commissioners selected in what right groups call a “closed and unaccountable vetting system by the Thai senate."
Several Thai civil society groups - led by the Union for Civil Liberty, the Human Rights Lawyers’ Association and the Foundation for Consumers - also criticized the proposed merger in a petition Wednesday.
On the same day, civil society group the Assembly of the Poor condemned the merger, saying that the commission was “important and necessary for the protection of people’s rights, particularly the poor.”
