New Mandala

12 responses so far ↓

• 1 Awzar Thi // May 14, 2008 at 9:40 pm

  Nicholas, you didn’t read about it earlier because it is news not fit to print at The Nation.

• 2 jonfernquest // May 14, 2008 at 10:55 pm

  Khon Kaen?

  What exactly is to be gained by having everyone of Thailand’s numerous provinces come up with their own lese majeste policy?

  Shouldn’t this sort of policy be centralised and made at a national level?

• 3 Democratus // May 15, 2008 at 2:01 am

  Expect more of this kind of thing. The royalists remain on the march and fascist tendencies are emerging (e.g. in the Manager).

• 4 Khun Stillwater // May 15, 2008 at 10:43 am

  There is alot of confusion amongst Palang Prachachon supporters (people who are Pro-Thaksin). One side consists of old school pro-royalists, yet there isa small group within Thaksin’s team like Jakrapop who are anti-sakdina (but would rather have a capitalist ruling class).

  I wish they’d all get on the same page already. If they are going to play the LM card they better be sure Penkair is “safe” first.

• 5 Wendell // May 15, 2008 at 4:34 pm

  Why Khon Kaen?

  The simple answer is that, according to the article at the address below, the person who filed the charge is a resident of Khon Kaen, so it not surprising that he filed with Khon Kaen police.

  http://www.prachatai.com/english/news.php?id=620

  To clarify some ambiguity in the AHRC statement, the lese majeste policy does reside nationally in the Criminal Code (not some Khon Kaen-specific criminal code, as implied by the wording in the quote). The law/policy is then interpreted by the courts.

  To the best of my understanding, Thailand’s provincial courts, as courts of first instance in criminal matters, routinely deal with all sorts of matters concerning the Criminal Code. Ultimately the final interpretation takes place centrally because cases can (theoretically) be appealed all the way to the Supreme Court. It’s just the way the hierarchy of courts works in Thailand.

  Of course, there might be other reasons for choosing to file in Khon Kaen (perhaps expectation of the case getting a sympathetic first hearing, for instance), but I don’t know anything about the individuals–plaintiff and justice officials– involved to speculate whether that is the case.

• 6 Bangkok Pundit // May 15, 2008 at 8:26 pm

  Please note this does not deal with Lese Majeste law which is Section 112. The complaint surrounds “incitement” or persuading people to break laws – see here for more.

• 7 jonfernquest // May 15, 2008 at 8:31 pm

  “…it not surprising that he filed with Khon Kaen **police**.”

  Doesn’t the **national** police investigate these cases before passing them on for prosecution? Or can anyone can file a charge against anyone and have it immediately prosecuted? If every case went to trial, wouldn’t that get fairly chaotic, if thousands of people chose to exercise their right, with those bogus cases they tried to bring against Thaksin?

  I think there must be a missing investigation and filtering of the cases step that is being left out of the description of the process somewhere. Or maybe everyone is too afraid to ask, with people like PAD and Sondhi, already slated to serve time for criminal defamation, employing LM as a last ditch violent political weapon?

• 8 jonfernquest // May 15, 2008 at 8:37 pm

  I see Abhisit has just accused Jakrapob of LM :

  BREAKING NEWS

  Jakrapob: I’ve no intention to involve high authority

  (BangkokPost.com) – Prime Minister’s Office Minister Jakrapob Penkair denied Thursday that he had the intention to involve high authority in his recent speech given at the Foreign Correspondents’ Club of Thailand.

  Mr Jakrapob, speaking on Thursday at the Government House, insisted that he did not mean to involve the monarchy in the speech. He also said that the speech was given over a year ago when he was fighting against the military coup.

  “I would like to reiterate that I did not have the intention to involve high authority in the speech,” he told reporters. “It was purely the social analysis, which was made more than a year ago.”

  He added that he is working on the translation of the speech, and will release it to public next week.

  Democrat party leader Abhisit Vejjajiva, meanwhile, said he planned to file a complaint with Prime Minister Samak Sundaravej on this matter Friday.

  Mr Abhisit insisted that the speech contains details that poses risk to the high authority, and he would like to see how Mr Samak handles the matter.

• 9 jonfernquest // May 15, 2008 at 10:31 pm

  Apparently, this is a recent article about that controversial Jakrapob speech. Or is it a different speech? Or is it illegal to even talk about this? Or dangerous? (i.e. vigilante Sondhi and his lynch mob)

• 10 Wendell // May 16, 2008 at 3:15 pm

  To the best of my understanding, the process of citizens filing criminal charges in Thailand goes like this (I hope someone will correct me if I’m wrong):

  A citizen with a complaint can go to any police station to try file a charge because the Royal Thai Police are a unified national entity, regardless of physical location. Police will generally refer such a citizen to the station nearest the location where the alleged crime was committed–in a case concerning a newspaper article or internet message board, the case could be filed anywhere. Police generally also only accept cases from injured parties.

  If police accept the complaint (i.e. let the citizen file the charge), police will then investigate the matter, summoning the accused to answer charges and consulting with police experts from other areas if need be. This process can take anywhere from days to months or more, depending on complexity of the case and other aspects of the situation. At this stage, for minor offenses, police may try to get the accuser and the accused to reconcile. Police will then decide whether to refer the case to the public prosecutor, who then considers the case and decides whether to persue it in court. If the prosecuter decides to prosecute, the case usually begins in the court where the complaint was filed (in this case Khon Kaen Provincial Court).

  So for this Fah Diew Kan/Prachatai case, from the reports it would seem that Royal Thai Police in Khon Kaen have accepted the incitement accusation (thank you Bangkok Pundit) and are probably now in the course of investigating.

  My mistake earlier for skipping directly to the courts–I jumped the gun and caused confusion. Sorry.

• 11 jonfernquest // May 17, 2008 at 9:19 pm

  Thanks, Wendell, for the clarification. People rarely write about the procedural details of how the legal system works, and details do sometimes make a big difference in terms of how “justice” is reckoned.

  For example, I know for a fact that rural people who get in traffic accidents in Bangkok and have their cases adjudicated on the scene by police officers, and who obviously can’t produce character witnesses on the spot, are at an extreme disadvantage. There was also an article in the Bangkok Post Perspective section several months ago about alleged injustices in pre-hearing arraignments.

  As far as lese majeste goes, the details would be interesting, of how this not standing up in a movie theater case, **an act that was meant to be provocative**, but probably happens from time without incident, **got blown up into such a big case, presumably the intention of the provocateur, provoking even further legal conflict**, at a time in Thai politics when one would think **conflict resolution**, not conflict generation, would be sought.

• 12 Mariner // May 18, 2008 at 10:40 pm

  What I would like to read are some examples of just what constitutes lese majeste: we hear that so and so has been charged but are left in the dark as to what it is she or he actually did or said -a rare exception is the recent ’sitting’ case and the daubing of paint on a picture.

  Of course, stating such details might itself be a breach of the LM law. Is that the case?

Leave a Comment