TLHR and political cases

Thai Lawyers for Human Rights has a series on what it means to be a human rights lawyer. The most recent post in the series is about Junjira Junpaew, also known as “Lawyer Muay.”

She makes some important points. Here are some of them, but read the whole post:

I had already rejected the bureaucratic system. Judges are part of that system. When I followed villagers’ legal cases, I saw judges working without independence.

It is often forgotten that Thailand’s courts and its judges are part of the bureaucracy and that they cannot be independent. Most significantly, judges view themselves as slaves to the monarch.

She moved onto “political cases after the 2014 coup. She sees them as a different kind of challenge. Some political cases stem from the defendant speaking on sensitive issues, making the chance of winning almost non-existent.”

These cases demand even more fighting spirit than ordinary ones, despite knowing that the chance of losing is very high. Political cases are about recording history –recording that there was a time when the justice system forbade citizens from speaking the truth.

Criticizing laws that expanded the King’s royal powers became impossible. It’s absurd that the law itself isn’t illegal, but people who discuss or criticize the consequences of that law are criminalized and imprisoned. It means we are not allowed to speak the truth. The verdicts in these cases, especially those involving Section 112, tend to follow the same pattern. There’s often very little reasoning or detailed explanation. Sometimes, even in the same ruling, the court’s reasoning for convicting someone of violating the Emergency Decree has more detail than convictions under Section 112. That’s because they can’t actually refute the evidence we present in court. Thanks to the truth that we present…

PPT has made similar points over the years, so it is no surprise that a lawyer in lese majeste cases sees these issues so clearly. Stressing Arnon Nampa’s case Lawyer Muay says:

Arnon spoke the truth, but it was a truth that the traditional establishment forbids people from mentioning. Even though everyone knows it’s true, it’s absolutely prohibited to talk about it. And the justice system is now actively serving the role of forbidding people from speaking the truth. But we still believe that one day, truth will prevail. And when we look back, we will see the truth behind the justice system…

We applaud her and her colleagues for their efforts in supporting those caught in this corrupted justice system