The Constitution Court will rule on the constitutionality of two controversial water-management decrees on Feb. 22, following a hearing on Wednesday.

One of the decrees is intended to allow the government to seek 350 billion baht (11.4 million U.S. dollars) in loans for water management projects and flood rehabilitation work.

The other is to enable the Finance Ministry to transfer the full responsibility for the 1.14 trillion baht (37 billion U.S. dollars) of bailout debt from the 1997 financial crisis to the Bank of Thailand's Financial Institutions Development Fund.

They were among the four executive decrees approved by the cabinet on Jan. 10.

The Democrat Party and a group of senators petitioned the Constitution Court, asking it to rule on the constitutionality of the two decrees.

Korn Chatikavanij, the deputy leader of the opposition Democrat Party, said the two financial executive decrees need to be reviewed by the court as they have the potential to inflict irreparable damage on budgeting and financial discipline and weaken the fiscal role of the legislative branch in the future.

Yingluck Shinawatra's government plans to seek loans for the water management aiming to prevent flooding in the short and long terms by issuing four executive decrees. However, the opponents said there was no justification for the issuance of the decrees instead of going through the parliament consideration.

The court set Feb. 22 for handing down the decision on the legality of the two decrees.