The Prime Minister of Thailand, Samak Sundaravej, has had a severe legitimacy problem for some time now. Not only is he facing charges of corruption, his party has also been accused of electoral fraud in the last election. There have been many protests as well, some violent. However, none of these things have been sufficient enough to get Sundaravej out of power. It was his appearance on a cooking show, Tasting While Grumbling, that was sufficient enough. The Thai constitution prohibits Ministers from being employed in the private sector, and Sundaravej’s paid appearances on that show apparently violated that rule. The Constitutional Court asked him to resign today.
We coded this rule a lot when we were working on a project about constitutional rules for some of the faculty in the department (I don’t think you or I coded the Thai constitution, but many countries’ constitutions have this clause), and this is the first time I’ve heard of this clause invoked at all, let alone in such a creative way!