Court rejects the settlement purchase
The State Railway of Thailand( SRT ) and the Ministry of Transport were ordered to pay multi-billion baht compensation in the Hopewell saga, but the Central Administrative Court overruled that order yesterday.
As a result, Hopewell( Thailand) won’t be required to give the government or the SRT the sizable compensation.
Pirapan Salirathavibhaga, the deputy prime minister and power minister, posted yesterday on Facebook,” Congratulation to all Thais.” The Hopewell situation has been won by us. A working section dealing with issues related to the abandoned bridge project was previously led by Mr. Pirapan.
Hopewell can also challenge the ruling of the court, though.
Following a 2021 decision by the Central Administrative Court against them in the Hopewell story, the Transport Ministry and the SRT’s ask for lawsuit were granted on March 4 of last year.
The Central Administrative Court was the new target of the settlement dispute as a result.
Ruling a earn for” all Thais” in Pirapan
The government and the SRT, according to Mr. Pirapan, claimed that the statute of limitations had now passed and ought to have had an impact on the Supreme Administrative Court judges’ decision at the time.
The Supreme Administrative Court ordered the ministry and SRT to pay 11.8 billion baht plus an accrued interest rate of 7.5 % to the company in the original 2019 ruling for the termination of a contract in 1998 to build obstructing Bangkok’s 60-kilometer elevated highway and rail system.
The amount of settlement was determined by a 2008 decision of an arbitration tribunal. According to solutions, the sum has since increased to about 27 billion ringgit with interest.
A Constitutional Court decision from March 17, 2021, which clarified a solution adopted by Supreme Administrative Court courts on November 27, 2002, served as the foundation for the government and the SRT’s request asking for retrial of the 2019 decision.
The complaint questioned whether the Supreme Administrative Court’s decision in the case regarding the statute of limitations violated the constitution and was in violation of the 1999 Establishment and Proceedings of Administrative Cases Act.
The Hopewell case’s statute of limitations may be counted starting on March 9, 2001, the day the Supreme Administrative Court was established, according to a ruling by the judges.
As a result, it determined that the business had legally requested the arbitration court’s decision. The statute of limitations began on the first known day of the dispute, according to the plaintiffs, who claimed that the 1999 laws made this clear.
However, the majority of Constitutional Court justices decided that the decision was unconstitutional because the Supreme Administrative Court had not published it in the Royal Gazette or sent it to parliament for review.
The judges ruled that these errors made the quality” unworkable.”
The five-year statute of limitations, according to Mr. Pirapan, was actually counted starting on January 30, 1998, when Hopewell was made aware of the damage.
As argued by Hopewell and supported by the Supreme Administrative Court in its April 22, 2019, decision on the situation, it expired on January 30, 2003, and did not begin on March 9, 2001, the day the managerial court was established.
The Central Administrative Court ruled yesterday that the ministry and the SRT may use the Constitutional Court’s decision as justification for seeking a retrial despite the fact that it cannot provide the decision of the Supreme Administrative Council illegal.
On November 9, 1990, when the overdue Montri Pongpanit served as transport secretary under the Chatichai Choonhavan administration, the commitment to construct the Hopewell task was signed.