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Author	Asst Prof Rawin Leelapatana
Organisation/Institution	Chulalongkorn University, Faculty of Law
Country	THAILAND
Panel	Constitutional and Admin Law
Title	The Separation of Powers under Hyper-Moralism: Lessons from Thailand’s Binary-Star Scenario
Abstract	At present, concerns over the rule of law (RoL) are pervasive across the globe, with one of its key tenets, the separation of powers (SoP), having gradually transformed into a universally embraced doctrine. Thailand, however, represents a political setting in which ruling elites cannot completely deny the adoption of the SoP but remain sceptical about its intrinsic value—a scenario I refer to as 'the binary-star scenario'. Here, I assess how and to what extent the SoP is arranged under Thailand’s current junta-engineered 2017 Constitution. My ultimate argument is that this situation undermines the RoL by intensifying the problem of ‘hyper-moralism’—the excessive embrace of a ‘clean politics rationale’ that castigates elected politicians, in contrast to the King and the unelected aristocratic elites, as corrupt and immoral under the guise of law. This results in the SoP being transformed into a political mechanism for limiting the space of electoral politics and mainstreaming the pre-eminence of aristocratic rule. Put simply, the development of the SoP and the RoL in Thailand is being compromised by the language of morality.
Biography	Rawin Leelapatana received a competitive scholarship from the Office of Higher Education Commission to pursue his PhD in law at the University of Bristol, the United Kingdom in 2014. The title of his PhD thesis is The Kelsen-Schmitt Debate and the Use of Emergency Powers in Political Crises in Thailand, supervised by Professor Steven Greer. In November 2018, he received the Anglo-Thai Educational Awards for Academic Excellence, and completed a PhD degree on 23 January 2019. Since his return to Thailand in February 2019, he has worked as a lecturer at the Faculty of Law, Chulalongkorn University.