ICC in Bangkok VI

Yellowish op-ed writer and former editor at the Bangkok Post Veera Prateepchaikul weighs in on the topic of the International Criminal Court, with a little less of the screeching and volume of the Post’s recent editorial. Yet his claims are no less biased and contrived.

His first claim seems to be that “this just part of an orchestrated plot by the Pheu Thai Party to discredit Democrat Party leader and former prime minister Abhisit Vejjajiva ahead of the censure debate scheduled at the end of the month?” Yes, that’s right, the International Criminal Court must be a part of the pro-Thaksin Shinawatra clique. Veera is being deliberately misleading, knowing full well that Robert Amsterdam took the case to the ICC in late October 2010 in a preliminary filing, and follow-ed up with a second detailed report, visits to the ICC by red shirts and a supplemental action in August 2012. In other words, Veera is deliberately misleading by insinuating that a legal action begun more than two years ago is related to a censure debate today.

When the first action was filed, as now, a Bangkok Post editorial made the claim that the “hope to indict Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva for crimes against humanity in the International Criminal Court is a shocking misuse of the justice system.” Not much has changed at the Post.

Then Veera tries to make the case for the yellow-shirted, mostly unelected senators, stating: “[Foreign Minister] Surapong or the government cannot act alone in allowing the ICC to have jurisdiction over a legal case in Thailand without prior endorsement from the parliament because Thailand is yet to ratify the treaty that established the ICC.” Actually, Section 190 of the constitution, claimed relevant by the senators, refers specifically to “a peace treaty, armistice and other treaties with other countries or international organisations,” so Veera seems to make the case that if it ain’t a treaty yet, then this section is not much help (although we might expect a politicized and corrupt Constitutional Court to interpret this otherwise).

But Veera’s main claim is this: “The big question mark is why does Thailand need the ICC to investigate and deliberate the political violence in 2010 while the Thai judicial system is still functioning effectively?” Why would any reasonable person conclude that the Thai judicial system functions effectively? Veera seems to admit that the dissolving of several pro-Thaksin parties might represent a bias but then makes the claim that this “does not mean that the justice system is biased or has failed to function properly.” We guess he means that it works pretty well for the royalist rich and powerful, for “protecting” the monarchy and in granting impunity to the state’s murderers. By any reasonable definition, it is a failed system.