Rule of law (and royalist dunces)

The Bangkok Post reported that “Thailand’s rule of law ranking improved slightly [by a solitary point] in the latest World Justice Project (WJP) Rule of Law Index 2025, ranking 77th out of 143 countries worldwide.”

Thailand Institute of Justice director Phiset Sa-ardyen said “the findings serve as a reminder that Thailand still needs to rebuild trust in its justice system and pursue structural reforms to make justice and transparency the foundation of credibility.” He added that corruption was an area where Thailand’s score declined.

No surprise there, and we’d suggest that under the royalist gangster government it is likely to decline even further.

We understand that “rule of law” covers a range of areas, but one where Thailand should rank very low is in dealing with political cases and political prisoners, as a recent report in Prachatai emphasizes.

The report is of red shirt Yongyuth Boondee, also known as Daeng Shinjang, who was released from prison on 28 October 2025. He was incarcerated on two explosives cased from the 2014 Yellow Shirt protests. He was already acquitted on three of those charges and the other two were finally flicked out of the court, leading to his release.

Yongyuth had been detained since 9 September 2024 pending trial on the five charges of possessing explosives and firearms. His bail requests were denied 49 times.

As the report explains, the five cases were “based on an interrogation 11 years ago while he was detained at a military camp after being summoned by the … junta.” He was physically assaulted. As Yongyuth argued, the “record was unreliable as it was coerced under threats and intimidation while he was detained. He said he pleaded guilty at the time because he was forced to do so without the presence of a lawyer.”

In court, the evidence provided by prosecution witnesses was contradictory, and as the court saw it “hearsay evidence” when first acquitting him. Yet it was the very same evidence that was used in other cases and which kept him incarcerated.

In the end, Yongyuth spent 400 days in detention before being acquitted of all charges, against constitutional notions of presumed innocent until proven guilty and the right to bail.