Abstract:
The Constitution of the Kingdom of Thailand B.E. 2550, Section 84 (9) provides that the State shall promote, support, and protect the autonomous cooperative system as wall as the formation of an occupational or professional organization, including the formation of people to engage in business activities. However, such policy aiming at the autonomy of cooperative differs from the ones provided by the previous Constitutions: the State shall promote, encourage, and protect the cooperative system. This is the leading cause of the study to find out whether the Cooperative Law has promoted, supported, and protected the independence of the cooperative system and which provisions of law, obstruct the work of the autonomous cooperative system. The main findings of the study show that the Cooperative Law in Thailand empowers government officials to control, inspect, promote, and assist the operation of cooperative activities as always. Therefore, cooperative in Thailand can not be autonomous. Government officials are empowered to supervise cooperative business closely just to support weak cooperatives and to prevent encountering of cooperative establishment purposes. Regarding the Constitution of the kingdom of Thailand saying that the State shall promote, support and protect the cooperative system to be independent, the enforcement of the existing cooperative law is to be amended according to the above policy. To comply with the policy of the State Constitution, I therefore propose that the agencys board of National Cooperative Development stated in The Cooperative Act B.E. 2542 should be revised. The committee should consist of more cooperative agencies represintatives than the governments agencies. Their duties are to consider appeals, judge legal problems and raise polices Moreover, the authority of the government officials should be reduced. This will encourage the cooperative board to operate activities independently. The Cooperative Law should also include penalties for violation of and dishonest committee.