Justice minister wants agency to go back to accepting cases approved by panel, instead of just based on chief's decision
In a move to stop future political intervention in the Department of Special Investigation (DSI), Justice Minister General Paiboon Koomchaya yesterday instructed new DSI chief Suwana Suwanjutha to review the special-case criteria and ensure that all cases get the Special Case Committee's approval first.
Suwana has been given two days to review the criteria before reporting back, Paiboon said.
After holding a policy meeting with Suwana and other DSI executives yesterday, Paiboon explained that in recent years the DSI took up cases at the DSI chief's personal discretion, which opened the door for political influence.
In order to avoid this, he said, the agency should return to strictly working under the 21-member Special Case Committee, chaired by the prime minister, he said.
Although the Special Case Investigation Act lists 36 cases that the DSI can automatically take up, all cases from now on should be thoroughly scrutinised by the committee first, which may lead to delays but should yield better results, he said.
He also asked to see a report on the cases that the DSI says are already 80 per cent complete. He said this report would be used to study the characteristics of the special cases as well as the investigation methods used. He said he always wanted to see whom DSI probes had affected and that this should help show how the DSI can be reformed, Paiboon said.
When asked if he wanted to check on the cases because they were politically related and stemmed from protests led by red shirts and People’s Democratic Reform Committee supporters, Paiboon said all the defendants were Thai citizens, adding that the report should not differentiate. He also insisted that he would ensure that there is no division or disunity.
Suwana said the minister has a clear policy about DSI's work criteria and that she, as DSI chief, would cut down on using her own personal discretion because all case investigations should uphold the rule of the law. She pointed out that an individual's personal opinion would affect work.
She added that she was not worried about taking over as DSI chief because she had been working in the justice sector all along and that she wanted to help fix the agency's image.
She went on to say that in order to fix the image successfully, it would require cooperation from within the DSI, while also requiring her to be knowledgeable and more hard-working than usual. She said she would call a meeting with her deputies and DSI executives today to work on the criteria review.