Senate steers clear of motion on Jaruvan

Published on October 11, 2005 - The Senate yesterday rejected a motion to reaffirm the appointment of Auditor General Khunying Jaruvan Maintaka, dashing hopes for her reinstatement.

The majority of 91 senators opted to stay away from the Jaruvan case and let the State Audit Commission (SAC) try and find a solution on its own even though the minority of 47 made a last-minute plea for the upper house to take a lead on the matter.

Seven senators abstained from voting.

The motion, sponsored by 22 senators, was designed to facilitate the reinstatement of Jaruvan after the Constitution Court had ruled last year that her nomination process was unconstitutional but stopped short of addressing the issue of whether she had lost her job.

Senator Kaewsan Atibhodi, a key architect of the motion, said the confusion over the Jaruvan case arose because the Senate had tried to rely on the SAC to sort out related legal issues.

After last year’s ruling, the Senate should have debated how to resolve the Jaruvan case but passed the matter on to the SAC, which made a unilateral interpretation of the verdict to disqualify Jaruvan and nominate Visut Montriwat, Kaewsan said.