Thailand's Sangha Bill still controversial

Tavivat Puntarigvivat, Director World Buddhist University's Institute of Research and Development, The Nation, Asia News Network, Bangkok

The much-publicized controversy over the new Sangha Bill, which seeks to reform the country's Buddhist monastic community, has attracted public interest in a bitterly-contested question of how best to govern the more than 300,000 Buddhist monks nationwide.

The new Sangha Bill will be taken back to the drawing board. Those who have a vested interest, one way or another, who want to rush the proposed legislation through Parliament will find it more difficult to do so due to heightened public scrutiny.

The next step should be for the government to set up a review committee made up of senior monks, lay experts and legal experts from the Juridical Council to seek a consensus.

Ideally, wider public participation should be encouraged. A national assembly similar to the one assigned to draft the present Constitution should be created comprising Buddhist monks and lay Buddhists.

Social and economic development over the years necessitates reform of the Buddhist monastic community.

Unfortunately, the new Sangha Bill endorsed by the Sangha Supreme Council, is modeled on the most "authoritarian" version of previous Sangha Acts.

Going back centuries, Buddhism in Thailand was protected and preserved by a checks and balances system among the state, monastic authority and the public.

The interaction between the three had been effective in ensuring that monks adhere to precepts and good behavior as well as solving problems that arose.

The people have the responsibility to provide for the financial and material needs of the clerical community as well as to monitor the behavior of monks, who are supposed to concentrate on studying the Dhamma.

Local people and the community imposed sanctions on wayward monks.

At the same time, the state provided the monastic community with security from domestic and foreign threats, including heresy and false teachings.

The advent of the first Sangha Act changed all that. People and the various communities have since been excluded from having a say in monastic affairs.

Monks are no longer accountable to the public. The monastic authority provides protection for Buddhist monks. That's why monks who commit wrongdoing can continue to remain in the monkhood despite being involved in well publicized scandals, provided they are protected by the monastic authority.

The monastic authority is now operating not unlike a state bureaucracy, with the same inefficiency, lack of accountability and corruption.

At the same time, the state has been reduced to serving as the secretariat for the Sangha Supreme Council instead of playing an active role in the governing of Buddhist monks.

Under the Sangha Act BE 2535 (1992), the King's power to approve the appointment of the Supreme Patriarch was removed, effectively ending any vestige of state control over the monastic authority, which went on to be come accountable to no-one in the land.

The new Sangha Bill must make sure that the state and the people are restored as key players in the administering of monastic affairs.