Rights Beautiful Collection of Professor Saneh Chamarik
among the urban middle classes, popularly known as Black May, the
following year. This time around, the whole country came under enormous
and nationwide pressure and demand for political reform. “Reform” now
becomes the catchword reflecting the rising and restless expectations
among Thai people at all levels of society. It turned explosive to the critical
point that the old-time politicians were obliged, however reluctantly and
half-heartedly, to bend to the popular will to have created a new and reformspirited Constitution.
However, the gap between the newly-acquired rights and liberties
as written into the Constitution, and the reality of power of enforcement
still very much remains. Such a political predicament vividly reminds one
of the late Sir Josiah Crosby, British Ambassador at the time of the 1932
Revolution, who articulated the grave concern for democracy without the
force of public opinion.7 More often than not, they are nonchalantly ignored
under popularly-elected parliamentary rule. The state of affairs seems not
much different from the previous authoritarian one. The big difference is
that the people now are so articulate and much better aware and inquisitive
of what has been going on in the country and the world outside. Besides,
there arise increasing number of non-governmental and civil society groups,
as well as all sorts of mass media, to pose collectively and often aggressively
as watchdog against any wrong doings on the part of the power that be.
This is roughly what the Thai NHRC finds itself in. It took a
fairly long and complicated process to get the whole 11-member Commission
elected through a selection committee and the Senate, and then royally
appointed. The selection committee’s composition is interesting. Its 27
members include 4 from state agencies, 5 from academic institutions, 10 from
private organizations, 5 political from political parties, and 3 from public
media. Each nomination must be passed by votes of not less than ¾ of all
7
Josiah Crosby, Siam: The Crossroads, London, Hollis and Carter Ltd., 1945, pp. 89-90 and
152-153.
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OFFICE OF THE NATIONAL HUMAN RIGHTS COMMISSION OF THAILAND