Most readers of PPT will already be well aware that Thailand’s courts operate on different and politicized standards when dealing with “their” side of politics and when dealing with the hated red shirts. These double standards are so far apart that the royalists could drive their Ferraris and Mercedes Benzs through them without touching the sides.
MCOT News reports the latest unsurprising announcement of the terrible and destructive double standards exhibited by the judiciary:
The Criminal Court has accepted for trial lawsuits by families of two protesters who were shot dead during the police crackdown at Phan Fah Bridge, Ratchadamnoen Avenue, last Tuesday.
Jongjit Sae-Dan and Umaporn Angthong filed the lawsuits against caretaker Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra and director of the Centre for Maintaining Peace and Order Chalerm Yubamrung.
Other defendants included National Police chief Adul Saengsingkaew, Department of Special Investigation director general Tarit Pengdith, commissioner of Provincial Police Region 2 Kawi Supanand and Chon Buri Provincial Police chief Katcha Tatsart.
They were charged with premeditated murder during their operation to retake Phan Fah rally site by using weapons, explosives and bullets without abiding by international standards in controlling crowds,
Readers may recall how long it took for Suthep Thaugsuban and Abhisit Vejjajiva to be charged with murder for their roles in ordering the shooting down of red shirts in 2010. The charges against them came only after the Puea Thai Party came to power via the 2011 election and after exhaustive investigations and inquests. In the current situation, the cases have been accepted within a week of the events.
The judiciary, blinded by its political bias, is destroying the foundations of democratic politics in a kind of judicial suicide. No one can possibly take the judiciary seriously. The judiciary, long the handmaiden of military leaders and their authoritarian politics, has failed to make the transition to democratic politics.
Part of that failure has to do with the monarchy’s successful co-opting of senior judges, most clearly seen in the king’s demand for judges to get politically engaged following the April 2006 election.
Political Prisoners in Thailand 