An activist lawyer lodged a petition on Thursday seeking to dissolve Thailand’s Move Forward Party over its plan to amend a law protecting the monarchy from criticism, in a setback for a party that won an election on a bold agenda of liberal reform.
The petition was filed with the election commission a day after the Constitutional Court ruled the opposition Move Forward had undermined the powerful crown and national security, ordering it to cease its pursuit of changing a law that forbids insulting the monarchy.
Violations of the law are punishable by jail of up to 15 years for each perceived insult of the royal family, making it one of the world’s strictest lese majeste laws. The constitution states the king is enshrined to be held in a position of “revered worship”.
The petition was filed by Ruangkrai Leekitwattana, a lawyer and former senator with a track record of successfully pursuing legal campaigns to ban top bureaucrats and politicians, one of which led to the downfall of a prime minister in 2008.
The election commission will weigh the merits of the complaint and whether to send it to the Constitutional Court to decide on party dissolution, which could see its executives banned from politics for a decade.
Its predecessor, Future Forward, had championed similar policies and was disbanded in 2020 for violating campaign funding rules.
“The election commission must take into account (yesterday’s) case … the commission must carry out its duties and cannot remain idle,” Ruangkrai told reporters.