More dead king 112

The Bangkok Post reports that the Supreme Court has upheld a lower court ruling sentencing Wutthipat (family name withheld) to three years and four months in prison for violating the lese majeste law over a social media post about the still improperly explained gun shot death of King Rama VIII.

Thai Lawyers for Human Rights said that on 18 February 2026 the Supreme Court affirmed the ruling of the Region 1 Court of Appeal.

The case resulted from a 2020 Facebook post “expressing opinions about the 1946 death of King Rama VIII, which negatively referred to King Rama IX.”

As everyone knows, Article 112 does not refer to dead kings. However, the courts have taken it upon themselves to “understand” that dead kings matter as comments about them may negatively impact the monarchy and those royals who are actually covered by the words of the law.

In this instance, the “court ruled that defaming a former monarch, even after his death, can affect national security.” It also made a claim that this “interpretation is consistent with the intent of Section 112 of the Criminal Code, known as the lese majeste law, and does not constitute an overly broad reading of the law.”

This is a false assertion from a royalist court. In fact, Wutthipat, now 29, was acquitted on 25 March 2022 by the Samut Prakan Provincial Court. That court correctly ruled that the lese majeste law “protects only four positions — the King, Queen, heir-apparent and Regent — who are currently in office.” Dead kings were not covered by the law.

Prosecutors appealed. Their claim was that Article 112 covers comments about dead kings as it “also affects the current king, King Rama X, and national security, particularly given Thailand’s constitutional monarchy and the hereditary succession of the Chakri dynasty.”

The courts and prosecutors compete to display loyalty and in doing so, distort the law and weaken the courts.