The Constitution Court on Wednesday afternoon ruled that the two executive decrees regarding water management proposed by the government as part of flood prevention plan were constitutional.

One of the decrees is intended to allow the government to seek 350 billion baht (11.4 billion US 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 US dollars) of bailout debt from the 1997 financial crisis to the Bank of Thailand's Financial Institutions Development Fund (FIDF).

The Constitution Court earlier accepted hearing petitions filed by 128 opposition Democrat MPs and a number of senators asking that it 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.

Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister Kittirat Na-Ranong represented Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra to defend the two decrees in testimony at the court on Feb. 15, reasoning that the decrees were needed to restore confidence in Thailand after the flood crisis last year.

From late July to mid December last year, 66 out of 77 provinces across the country had experienced the worst flood in over 50 years which affected as many as 15 million or a fifth Thai. The country's second airport Donmueang was inundated while thousands of enterprises were submerged, causing an estimated damage of at least 3.8 billion US dollars.

Kittirat earlier said that the 350 billion-baht loan would be spent on water management projects along the Chao Phraya river basin and the transfer of the FIDF's debt would help ease the government's fiscal burden.

Yingluck Shinawatra government plans to seek loans for the water management purpose 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 transfer of FIDF's debt was also criticised as government interference with the central bank.