Legal Problems regarding the Dismissal of the Mayor from office

Abstract

The Municipal Act B.E. (1953) stipulates that the provincial governor or district chief is responsible for supervising local municipalities to carry out their duties under the law. Including the power to supervise individuals. This includes the mayor as well. As a general principle, if any person has the power to appoint anyone to a position,  he or she must have the power to remove that person from the position, but only for local government organizations. This is because the mayor, who holds the position in local government administration, is directly elected by the people in the municipality. As a result, the mayor is not under the command and control of the central and provincial government in any way. Therefore, in ordering removal from office it must be following the law only. Section 73 stipulates that the provincial governor or district chief has the power to appoint an investigative committee. To investigate cases where there is evidence that the mayor has intentionally abandoned or neglected to perform his duties or has behaved in violation of peace and order or orders of the provincial governor or district chief as prescribed by law. By order of removal from the position of the provincial governor or Minister of the Interior according to Section 73/1 can therefore be considered an administrative order and must be subject to the rules of the law on administrative procedures. This is from a study of ordering the mayor to vacate his position according to the Municipal Act B.E. (1953), including amendments. There are still many legal problems as follows. The problem with the mayor's punishment measures is that the mayor must be ordered to leave office according to Section 73/1 only. Therefore, it is the only punishment measure, different from other civil servants or local government employees which stipulates that supervisors have the power to impose disciplinary punishment or the failure to grant the mayor the right to appeal an order of removal from office causes the mayor to be removed from office immediately, or in the case where the National Anti-Corruption Commission passes a resolution ruling that the mayor who is accused of having committed an offense According to the offense, the provincial governor must consider disciplinary punishment for the mayor according to the offense that the committee has resolved without appointing another disciplinary investigation committee. Even if there is an order to remove the mayor from office based on the investigation results of the Investigative Committee. But later, the National Anti-Corruption Commission considered and found that the mayor had not committed any crimes as charged. It is not clearly stated whether the mayor can request to revoke the order or not. Therefore, it is considered appropriate to amend the law regarding the order for the mayor to be removed from office according to the Municipality Act B.E. (1953) to be more appropriate and fairer.