Parit emphasizes the need to amend Section 236 to remove the parliamentary speaker's discretionary power, fearing it could be used to block public participation in the NACC's oversight mechanism. He revealed that the People's Party has already submitted the bill to Parliament and hopes MPs will jointly push it forward.
19 Apr 2026 GMT+7 Parit Watcharasindhu, a party-list member of Parliament (MP) and spokesperson for the People's Party, posted a message viaFacebook.Last night, he stated that our country cannot solve corruption problems unless key anti-corruption agencies operate impartially and transparently.
However, in recent days, the National Anti-Corruption Commission's (NACC) performance has faced increasing scrutiny after the NACC decided to dismiss a complaint in a case involving Saksayam Chidchob, former Minister of Transport, who was accused of nominee shareholding in Buricharoen Construction Ltd. and filing false asset declarations. This case previously led the Constitutional Court to remove Saksayam from his ministerial post two years ago.
Regarding suspicions about that resolution, Pakornwut Udomphipatsakul, a party-list MP and deputy leader of the People's Party, has already raised preliminary concerns (read more:“Pakornwut slams NACC for dismissing Saksayam complaint, suspects paving way for ministerial return”) and we will need to review explanations from the NACC secretary-general, who said documents would be published soon.
Parit further explained that one major question is: if it turns out that the NACC acted improperly or illegally (in the Saksayam case or others), what recourse do citizens have? Currently, Section 236 of the Constitution allows 20,000 citizens to jointly accuse the NACC by petitioning the Supreme Court president to establish an independent inquiry into the allegations (unlike other independent agencies where citizens lack such a mechanism).
But this mechanism has a major loophole because Section 236 adds a step requiring that once the citizen petition meets the signature threshold, it must be sent first to the parliamentary speaker, who has discretion to screen and decide whether to forward it to the Supreme Court president to form the inquiry panel or to dismiss the complaint before it reaches the court.
At first glance, many might not question this step, seeing it as a way for the parliamentary speaker to carefully filter allegations. But we must remember the parliamentary speaker is usually a government MP (as is currently the case).
So imagine if one day the government and the NACC collude to let the NACC turn a blind eye to corruption by government politicians. In that case, no matter how many millions of citizens file complaints through this mechanism, the cases would hardly reach the court, because the government could order or pressure the parliamentary speaker to use the authority under Section 236 to dismiss all complaints about the NACC's conduct. As long as the parliamentary speaker retains this discretionary power under Section 236, this provision remains a loophole enabling government-NACC collusion and rendering the NACC oversight mechanism ineffective.
"To prevent collusion between the government and the NACC and to strengthen the public's oversight capacity of the NACC, I believe it is necessary to amend Section 236 by removing the parliamentary speaker's power and discretion to decide whether to forward citizen complaints about the NACC to the court. Our People's Party has already submitted this bill to Parliament, hoping for cooperation from MPs to push it through in line with the government's declared policy to seriously tackle structural corruption."