Responding to the news that Thailand’s Constitutional Court has ruled in support of the Election Commission of Thailand’s (ECT) request to dissolve the Move Forward Party (MFP) due to their campaign to reform the lèse-majesté law, Deprose Muchena, Senior Director at Amnesty International said:
“The Constitutional Court’s ruling in favour of dissolving the Move Forward Party is an untenable decision that reveals the authorities’ complete disregard for Thailand’s international human rights obligations.
“Dissolving the party merely for advocating legal reforms constitutes a serious violation of the rights to freedom of expression and association against lawmakers who were simply performing their duty of proposing laws.
“The authorities’ relentless harassment of the political opposition represents a stark contradiction, as Thailand has publicly committed to global leadership on human rights by applying for a seat at the UN Human Rights Council. Thai authorities must urgently reverse the dissolution and stop weaponizing laws to intimidate and harass critics, human rights defenders and opposition politicians.”
Background
On 7 August 2024, Thailand’s Constitutional Court delivered a ruling on the petition submitted by the ECT, resulting in the dissolution of the MFP. Executives of the MFP — Thailand’s biggest political opposition party — now have a ten-year ban on running for office.
The ECT alleged in its petition that the MFP attempted to overthrow the monarchy, thus violating Article 92 of the 2017 Organic Act on Political Parties. This allegation stemmed from the MFP’s campaign to reform the lèse-majesté law under Article 112 of the Thai Criminal Code to prevent its misuse, namely in stifling dissenting voices.
Since the 2014 military coup in Thailand, Amnesty International found that the lèse-majesté law has been widely used to criminalize peaceful activism and consistently called for the Thai government to bring it in line with international law. Amnesty International has previously documented the dissolution of political opposition parties in Thailand, including the Thai Raksa Chart Party in 2019, and Future Forward Party in 2020 and condemned these moves as a violation of the right to freedom of expression and association.
In Thailand’s General Election in May 2023, the MFP, gained 151 out of 500 seats in the parliament’s lower house – the highest number of seats among all political parties. However, the party could not form a government, as it did not receive sufficient votes from military-appointed senates in the upper house.
Amnesty International is a non-partisan organization that does not take sides in political disputes and adheres strictly to its mission as a human rights organization.
