On Thailand’s Children’s Day in January, Gen Prayut Chan-o-cha, the Thai junta leader, said in a TV program that ‘knowledge and morality will lead us to the future’. Using the concept of morality as guidance, the junta is striving to make Buddhism a state religion and convincing children to follow the moral guidance of the King and love the nation, religion, and monarchy. The junta is looking to apply its definitions of morality to holders of political posts and civil servants. The junta’s Constitution Drafting Committee (CDC) has now laid out plans to create a ‘National Virtue Assembly’, a supra-governmental body which could determine the moral or ethical standards of public officials.

The idea of the Virtue Assembly has not yet been finalized, but according to the latest reports, its members can vote whether to kick start a moral inquisition of politicians and public officials deemed immoral. If it finds elected politicians and holders of political posts or local administrators guilty of overstepping its moral codes, the committee can call for a public referendum to be held in general elections and allow voters to decide if they want to impeach any officials it identifies. The Assembly can also make recommendations and leave parliament to decide whether or not to impeach non-elected public officials, such as high-ranking civil servants.

If impeached, politicians and civil servants will be barred from holding public office for five years.

For Ampon Chindawattana, chairman of the community affairs committee of the junta-appointed National Reform Council (NRC), this Assembly is crucial for improving the accountability of politicians.    

“It is necessary to have a mechanism to support and develop [moral] standards in this [Thai politics] in a concrete manner by allowing the participation from the public to determine what is acceptable and what is not,” said Ampon.

Plato (the central figure on the left in the famous painting ‘School of Athens' by Raphael), a well known philosopher of ancient Greek, advocates in his book ‘The Republic’ written around 380 BC that If the ideal city-state is ever to come into being, "philosophers [must] become kings…or those now called kings [must]…genuinely and adequately philosophize". 

To Kasem Penpinan, lecturer in political philosophy at Chulalongkorn University, however, the attempt to create a supra-governmental body to determine moral benchmarks for politicians is “a mechanism for those who want to hold on to power in order to control politicians. But these power holders are not politicians and not in the democratic system; they use morality in order to control.”

Kasem pointed out that the people who came up with the idea to create this Assembly do not view politicians as people’s representatives who are obliged to serve voters, but hold the prejudiced view that all politicians are immoral.

In addition, he said that there is no justification as to why this assembly, which is not elected by the people, should have the power to judge the politicians who are elected by the people.

The so-called National Virtue Assembly is likely to be made up of 55 eligible members from civil society, the civil service, and the private sector. All of them will be handpicked by a selection committee. Five of the 55 will be selected by the Senate to lead the Assembly. By ‘eligible’, the CDC stated that all members of the National Virtue Assembly must be publically respected, capable, known for their high moral stance, and have no tainted political backgrounds.

The CDC has not specified who exactly are the selection committee which will pick most members of the assembly.  

Since unelected senators will appoint five leading members of this moral assembly and the rest are selected by a god-knows-who committee, there is the question of how this undemocratic supra-governmental body can become a moral light to politicians under a democratic system.  

“We don’t know who the people are in this Assembly. The point is: are they connected to the people in a democratic system? As for people who select them, what right do they have and what justification gives them the right the pick [the members of the Assembly]. Do the people, who are the true owners of authority, have no rights in this?” asked Kasem.

He further said that it is problematic when a certain group of people want to assume hegemonic power to frame what is moral in politics and what is not.

“The reintroduction of ‘moral politics’ through the creation of this Assembly can be problematic because the concept of morality is hard to define,” said Kasem.   

“Being a moral person [in the democratic system] is not the most important thing because the democratic system itself has check and balance mechanisms,” concluded Kasem. “A good governor in a democratic system is not someone with morality, but someone who respects democratic rule.”