Page 354 - Publicationa15

346 H.E.PARK Han-Chul

In order for Thailand to strengthen its position and presence
in Asia and an international community, the role of the Constitutional
Court of Thailand, which has been acting as a guardian of the
constitutional order, and freedom and basic rights of the people
of this country, will become all the more important.
3.
However, a ruling of a domestic constitutional court inevitably
has some limitations, due to a limited scope of its effect.
This is one of the challenges encountered by the constitutional
justice today. Especially, in the area of universal human rights,
such as serious violations against humanity, national borders
should not be a hurdle.
In this regard, the need for an international alliance becomes
apparent.
In Asia as well, the Association of Asian Constitutional Courts
and Equivalent Institutions (so-called, “AACC”) was created by
adopting the Jakarta Declaration in July of 2010, and the Inaugural
Congress was held in Seoul, Korea in May of 2012. The efforts to
establish the AACC were led by Korea and joined by Thailand.
The Association which had seven countries as founding
members now has sixteen member states. Through the AACC,
a consensus was already reached among Asian countries that
inviolable human rights of individuals must be protected.
Of course, the Constitutional Court of Thailand has been
actively participating in the Association since its foundation and is
playing a very important role in the AACC.
Nonetheless, regional groups of constitutional courts like the
AACC still face the limitation that they lack legal binding force on
their own.
Creation of regional human rights institutions can mitigate
such limitation.

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