Various groups and organizations may put up themselves as civil society organizations to make them look good, and corporations may enter into civil society work for good images rather than from a genuine desire.
3.4 Prospects of further development
The Administrative Procedural Act (1996) is the first legislation that provides rights for groups of people as well as individuals to take part in the decision-making process of government officials in areas that may affect the people. This set a trend for further civic participation in the governance of the country.
The present constitution promulgated on October 11, 1997, seen to be the most progressive of all the 17 constitutions Thailand has had since 1932, is the clearest evidence of this trend as it has expanded the rights and space of Thai people in Thai politics as never before. Its progressive position is undoubtedly the result of not only intensive advocacy upon the Constitution Drafting Assembly by the civil society sector but also years of relentless grassroots people's struggles with the underlying expectation that people should have more say in society.
This position of the constitution is very important as under Thai legal system, the constitution is considered the fundamental law that recognizes the setting up and determination of conditions pertaining to various organizations. With words like "farmer's groups," "NGOs" and "community rights" in its content, the constitution clearly has its stance in supporting civic groups at the grassroots level. It provides opportunities for civic groups to form political parties and endorse informal education system. It allows 50,000 people to propose laws and demand investigation of politicians' wrongdoing and their dismissal if it is proved so. For the first time also, the constitution requires establishment of independent bodies, including the Parliament Ombudsman, Administrative Court, Constitution Court, National Counter Corruption Commission, and National Human Rights Commission, to check politicians and government officials. As for the last one in particular, it recognizes status of human rights NGOs, giving them rights to nominate commission members and send representatives to sit on the selection committee, resulting in the majority of human rights commissioners elected by the Senate to come from human rights NGOs. Finally, in principle, any legislation that is contradictory to provisions in the constitution must be amended. Although no timing is fixed for such improvement, civic movement can then use the constitution to advocate for the changes.
Kritaya et al (1999: 1i-1iii) proposes that for civil society to be strong and grow in a stable and sustainable fashion, important steps for civil society work must be taken at present in two areas: strengthening of civic movement and intensification of research and development of various aspects of the body of knowledge on civil society.
As for fostering the strength of civil society, they suggest four strategies:
(1) Creation of new politics―the Citizen's Politics
Citizen"s politics implies the culture and movement that promotes grassroots democracy and adheres to civic virtue in the sense that democracy is about direct, active participation of the people. Cooperation, mutual learning, joint activities and programs between CSOs and agencies of the state and business sector are needed. Care must be taken to prevent the latter from having the power to dictate terms to the civic movement; the relationships must be in equitable manner.
(2) Fostering of civic relationships
The Thai civic movement is still in its infancy and various parties in the movement have different ideas about philosophies and understanding. This is good in the sense that it provides space for initiatives, innovations and diversity in its activities and operations. However, this also means that they are subjected to strains of beliefs, norms and practices from varieties of spiritual, Buddhist, Christian and Islamic beliefs to patron-clientage and other hierarchical relationships.
