The Constitution Tribunal’s Justices’ this morning convened to hear testimonials in a case prompted by the Election Commission to review Prime Minister Samak Sundaravej’s involvement in a television cooking show. The case is based on the regulations prohibiting the Prime Minister from being an employee for other organizations while serving in his post. Today’s hearing was scheduled to hear testimonials of defendants and Prime Minister Samak traveled to state his testimonial personally after previously requesting a rescheduling. The tribunal had denied the request and stated that if the PM did not report to give his testimonial it would move to conclude the matter.

Mr. Samak affirmed during the hearing that during his involvement in the show he never requested any payment and had never received any payment from Face Media Ltd. He admitted to being reimbursed on certain occasions but assured that he had no administrative powers in the company and that he did not hold employee status.

Source : National News Bureau, Public Relations Department of Thailand