Search Results

This introductory chapter provides an overview of the political trials that were a marked feature of public life in Thailand in the decade after 2006. The Thai legal system is primarily dedicated to the preservation of peace and order, rather than to more liberal goals such as promoting rights-based justice, or even to the conservative, technocratic objective of promoting the rule of law. However, the conduct of political trials in the final decade of King Bhumibol Adulyadej's reign led perversely to a decline in peace and order, as the justice system itself became a focus for discontent. Banning pro-Thaksin Shinawatra parties twice in just over eighteen months, while acquitting the Democrat Party on similar charges, provoked accusations of “double standards.” Jailing various pro-Thaksin figures for long spells on the basis of dubious lèse-majesté or cybercrime charges that were framed as acts of treason beggared belief in a twenty-first century democracy. Conflicts between two major political factions were acted out in courtrooms that became proxy sites for much larger, more unmanageable, and unwinnable contests. This book then focuses on a particular period of Thailand's judicial politics: from the contentious April 2006 general election, until the passing away of King Bhumibol Adulyadej in October 2016. This was the era of tulakanphiwat, most commonly translated as “judicialization”: an era when the courts were apparently given a special—if rather unclear—royal mission to solve the country's intractable political problems.

This chapter focuses on Thailand's Constitutional Court, which has been characterized as the chosen instrument of a “Deep State” intent on enforcing the political stance of King Bhumibol Adulyadej. A closer inspection of the Constitutional Court, however, suggests a more complex and messy picture. As already seen in a series of Thaksin-related cases across different courts, Thai judges have struggled to implement the royal will—not least because it was often unclear what exactly the King wanted them to do. While there is significant evidence of anti-Thaksin bias in recent Constitutional Court decisions, examination of a pivotal 2012 constitutional amendment case illustrates the ways in which the judges sought to avoid making difficult decisions—which included trying to recuse themselves from hearing the case. During the final decade of the Ninth Reign, the Constitutional Court was frequently wavering, tentative, and downright evasive in its decisions, again reflecting the ambiguous stance adopted by the network monarchy. This was especially the case during the 2011–14 Yingluck government, which enjoyed significant royal favor until its final tumultuous months.