Abstract:
This study is undertaken to analyze the challenges that the public, in particular indigenous peoples, face in accessing the process for proposing draft legislation in accordance with the Constitution of the Kingdom of Thailand B.E. 2560 [2017] and the Initiative Process Act B.E. 2564 [2021], and to synthesize a model for strengthening the civil sector in regard to indigenous peoples legislative initiatives. Qualitative methodology is applied through in-depth interviews with 17 legislative experts and initiators. Five group discussions were held with eligible voters who had signed petitions to introduce bills: the groups consisted of, respectively, 32 persons from the Upper Northern Region, 20 persons from the Lower Northern Region, 20 persons from the Central, Eastern, Western Regions, 26 persons from the Northeastern Region, and 25 persons from the Southern Region. Moreover, data were collected from documents, and observations during the seminars and other related activities conducted by petitioning groups in the course of proposing various pieces of legislation. The discussions were co-conducted with facilitators who are familiar with
the languages and cultures of the indigenous groups. All data have been analyzed through thematic content analysis.
The study found that the public legislative initiative process can protect and promote the rights of the indigenous groups in terms of their needs in accordance with the provisions of the Constitution as well as international principles of human rights. The initiative process should be driven not only by the civil sector but also the government sector. The government sector should support peoples participation systematically. The participatory factors to drive the legislative process include the proposal of legislation and other
forms of direct democracy for the rights and liberties of the people through both informal and formal mechanisms, where communities, media, academia, and non-profit organizations take roles and work together. If any proposed legislation would address financial issues, the prime ministers approval is required for the bill to proceed through the legislative process; currently, unapproved such bills poses a significant challenge to the peoples legislative initiative process. Although the Initiative Process Act facilitates the drafting and proposal process, the greater challenge is how to drive the subsequent
process with the mechanisms and techniques to enhance cooperation among the government (government agencies), the political sector (the government and the parliament), and the civil sector (the stakeholders, the public, the media, and academia). As a result, the legislation will truly be enforced to meet the public interest. For future research, the roles of the civil sector in terms of legislative proposals should be followed up. A comparative study may be undertaken to learn about the achievements, obstacles, and success factors of such movements.