The organic bill on the election of MPs was withdrawn from parliamentary deliberation and sent back for another round of preliminary scrutiny to ensure it is compatible with the new way of calculating party-list MPs.
Parliament voted 476 to 25, with 20 abstentions and nine no-votes, to remove the bill from its deliberation agenda and allow it to be scrutinised again by the vetting panel.
A problem occurred during a joint-sitting by MPs and senators on Tuesday. As parliament proceeded to Section 23, a debating frenzy broke out as some lawmakers pointed to inconsistencies in the bill's contents and the House of Representatives' votes on the legislation.
The bill was initially scrutinised by the House committee to stipulate that the 100 party-list seats up for grabs in future elections would use a calculation method dividing the population of voters by 100, thus determining how many list MPs each party would receive.
But minority members of the vetting committee, mostly from small parties, insisted the electorate be divided by 500, which would give such parties an extra edge.
The vetting committee later settled for 100. But when the bill was put to the final reading, most MPs in the House of Representatives voted for 500 instead.
Sathit Pitutecha, Democrat Party for Rayong and chairman of the vetting committee, asked for a vote on Tuesday to return the bill as its contents do not reflect the final reading vote. The contents, particularly those in Section 23, need to be reworked to make them compatible with the calculation method using the number 500, he said.
Mr Sathit questioned whether the final vote that arrived at the calculation formula based on 500 constituted an act of interference with the vetting committee.
"Parliament must account for its actions," he said.
