Implementing good regulation principles
Phongthep Thepkanjana
Minister
Ministry of Justice
Thailand
1997 Constitution
• Underlying principles
– Transparency
– Accountability
– Public Participation
• Mandate on good regulation principles
– The State must … repeal and refrain from issuing any law or business
regulation that is not in accordance with the economic necessity.
• Key institutions to ensure adherence to the Constitution
– Constitutional Court
– Economic and Social Advisory Council
Ongoing Regulatory Reform
• Legislative Reform
– 45 Parliamentary Acts are earmarked for repeal
– More law will either be repealed or amended
• Administrative Reform
– Regulatory agencies are being streamlined
– Administrative independence is being safeguarded
• Judicial Reform
– Administrative Court was set up for judicial review of administrative
actions
– All Courts were made independent of the Administrative Branch
Regulatory Co-ordination and Management
• The Independent Regulatory Framework Subcommittee
– under the State Enterprise Policy Committee is responsible to ensure that
all new independent regulatory agencies are established under the same
framework.
• Juridical Council / Conseil d’Etat
– reviews all draft bills prior to its deliberation by the Parliament and all draft
decrees and ministerial ordinances prior to their promulgation.
• Administrative Procedure Committee
– has a responsible to monitor the performance of all administrative duties,
including regulatory duties, and issue a report on the matter to the Cabinet
at least annually.
Regulatory Co-ordination and Management
• Regulatory Capacity Building Project
– under the auspices of the Independent Regulatory Framework
Subcommittee and the supervision of the Ministry of Finance was initiated
with an aim to promote regulatory research and training.
• Regulatory Capacity Building Centre
– a public benefit private organisation has recently been set up to, inter alia,
undertake to the above Project.
Past Problems and New Tactics
• Despite the rather comprehensive institutional reform mentioned
above, regulatory quality improvement has been very limited due
to
– Competing political priority
– Bureaucratic inertia
– Abstractness of reform being proposed
• Reform efforts now centring around concrete date-certain
privatisation programme
Future Challenges
• Need to strengthen due regulatory process
• Need to strengthen regulatory practice capability
– Price / competition regulation
– Dispute resolution
• Need to strengthen regulatory review capability
– Public consultation
– Regulatory impact assessment