Law Doesn't Seem To Protect Investors

[_Echinochloa_]

Bangkok Post bag:

Coming to Thailand for investment purposes, on invitation, we were shocked with the laws and their application and enforcement, and have decided to reconsider.

We agreed to provide to a potential partner company some funds in order to finalise feasibility, with an agreed repayment agreement. The Thai partner company, a duly registered company with accounts at some of the major banks, issued a cash cheque together with a letter of guarantee in order to repay the said funds. The cheque was rejected by the bank as the account did not have the funds written against the cheque.

On filing a police report including private information on the chairman of the Thai company, the police agreed that there was a breach of law, but wanted 10% of the cheque value in order to collect/prefer charges against the Thai party involved. If not agreed, we were informed it could take years for action to be initiated; if agreed, action would be immediate.

A wrong is committed but the police want payment to initiate charges? Our potential investment was to be approximately two billion baht, but if the laws here do not protect potential investors, then the climate for investment is the wrong one for us.

P. SHARPE

http://www.bangkokpost.com/News/14Jan2005_news99.php

[taxexile]

welcome, i'm afraid, to planet thailand.

[Ijustwannateach]

No doubt it will eventually turn out to be your fault, for "not understanding Thai culture." In other words, you shouldn't expect professionalism by Western standards here.

"Steven"

[taxexile]

i am in thailand and the site is not blocked , you get redirected to it.

Edited January 14, 2005 by taxexile

[PvtDick]

I'm in Thailand, too (using True ADSL) and the site is not blocked.

[qwertyuiop]

No problem accessing the site for me either.

Using CSLoxinfo

[udon]

That's good, it was blocked in July and August last year.

Thanks for the feedback.

[Ajarn]

I can't get any of the links to redirect.... I'm on loxinfo

[taxexile]

here is one of the cases , its been saved as text from an adobe reader doc. and hasnt saved too well , but the main points are all there for those who can be bothered to wade through it all.

ADVENTURES IN THAI JUSTICE

by

PART FOUR—ALICE IN THAILAND

Jeffrey Race

Sentence first,verdict afterwards!

....

.

Not yet,not yet! First witness!

....

.

“I've had such a curious dream”

said Alice.

A trusting foreigner in a provincial

court hoped that like Alice he could

awake from the curious dreamlike

place where judgment comes first and

evidence later. Unfortunately it was

no dream, and like the Rabbit the for-

eigner's attorney had to push hard for

his evidence to be considered. He

failed: our concluding true story.

Unlike earlier case studies dealing with

property, this one examines the fairness

offered to foreign persons, obviously

significant for anyone considering

investment or residence in

Thailand.

JUDGE A

At the first hearing in a child custody

matter, the presiding judge announced

he had already decided for the plaintiff

because she had Thai nationality, so

few evidentiary hearings need be

scheduled. Judge A so stated knowing

nothing but the litigants' nationalities.

The foreign defendant and his Thai

attorney viewed this as tantamount to

declaring the court considered any

Thai, of any character, to be superior to

every foreigner. As it was impossible to

proceed under such conditions they requested

the Director General of Judicial Region 1 to

review the matter.

JUDGE B

The Director General took the complaint seriously

and in short order Judge B replaced

Judge A. An amiable and cheerful man,

Judge B possessed poise, compassion, and

every other ideal Thai characteristic. The foreign

litigant was very encouraged and for

about two years Judge B conducted the proceedings

impartially, with no conflicts and no

problems except chronic delays in securing

the Thai party’s testimony.

JUDGE C

After his successful work in the _____ Court,

Judge B was promoted to Bangkok and succeeded

by Judge C. From the day of his

arrival, the situation reverted to be even

worse than under Judge

A. Judge C spoke and

acted to injure the interest

of the foreign defendant

in matters great and small

and to treat the foreign-

er’s concern for his children

as a senseless triviality.

Two examples will

suffice.

Falsification of Report of

Proceeding In December

of ____, the Thai plaintiff

produced a very important

witness (a doctor) but

the defendant had to

request a postponement

because his chief counsel

was ill and alternate

counsel had just resigned from the law firm to

run for Parliament. Judge C recorded the

doctor’s direct testimony, permissible in the

case of a busy witness like a physician.

According to settled practice cross-examina-

tion would be scheduled at a later date in consultation

with both parties. Instead, Judge C

falsified the Report of Proceeding to state that

the foreign defendant had waived crossexamination.

When he objected, Judge C

threatened to imprison the foreigner, who had

to fall silent out of fear. But he declined to

legitimate the falsified Report by signing it

because the witness was crucial in a case with

important medical considerations.

Falsification of Testimony In May of ____ the

foreign litigant brought Mrs. W____ from her

residence abroad, scheduling her to testify in

two related cases before Judge C a few days

apart. She was an eyewitness to material

issues about the credibility of the Thai plaintiff

and her practice of chronic lying and teaching

the children to lie.

At one point Mrs. W_____ testified that one manually corrected the typed transcript.

of the children “said to me her mother [the

plaintiff] said it is OK to lie”, which Judge Judge C’s words reveal he knew that

C recorded as that the child had “said it is teaching children to lie is an evil, evi-

OK to lie”. Minor recording errors often dence of which would damage the Thai

occur, as a check against which court proce-litigant’s case, so he twice falsified the

dure is to read the testimony back to the trial record.

witness (in this case, to the interpreter) for

correction as necessary to reflect the wit-

ness’s actual words. JUDGE D

When Judge C read out the testimony, the

interpreter informed him that the words prepared to testify but the presiding

“her mother said” had been omitted. Judge judge was absent so Judge D sat to hear

C asked “You want her to be that awful?” the case ad interim. On calling the case he

The interpreter (now a prominent attorney stated that it concerned only child cusand

himself the son of a senior judge) stated tody, that it had been going on many

“I am only the interpreter. That is what years, and that the defendant was wastthe

witness testified”. Judge C replied “I ing the court’s time. The foreigner statknow”.

Because of Judge C’s constant hosed

that he believed the mother morally

tility, the foreigner deemed it useless to unfit to raise the two children to be honobject.

est persons. Judge D asked “I would like

to know how a foreigner could raise chil-

Four days later Mrs. W_____ testified identidren

better than a Thai”, not with gencally

before Judge C, who again deliberately uine curiousity but to signal annoyance

distorted her testimony to omit the words at wasting time on silly nonsense.

“her mother said”. This time the defense

attorney himself objected. Judge C showed Hearing again the theme “Any Thai is

an expression of great displeasure and then better than every foreigner”, the defen-

Two falsified transcripts of testimony, the second corrected after objection

ADVENTURES IN THAI JUSTICE PART FOUR—ALICE IN THAILAND PAGE THREE

dant requested to postpone the hearing, fearing

Judge D would falsify the trial record as

had Judge C.

JUDGE E

After all evidence was taken, Judge E transferred

in and was assigned to write the judgment.

His deciding principle proved identical

to that laid down by Judge A and Judge D: no

need for facts or law in a case between a Thai

and a foreigner.

The foreign defendant had introduced 11 eyewitness

to the moral unfitness of the Thai

plaintiff, backed up by solid documentary

evidence. Judge E arrived after completion of

evidentiary hearings, so had no direct and

personal knowledge of any testimony or documents.

Summarizing a case in litigation for

over five years, his reasoning totalled 34 lines,

never mentioning one word of the testimony

or evidence of the foreigner. (According to

Section 141(4) of the Civil Procedure Code, a

judgment must document all evidence considered.

Any evidence not documented was

not considered in forming the judgment.)

In his 34 lines Judge E stressed the hearsay

testimony of the doctor never subjected to

cross-examination, about which Judge C had

falsified the Report of Proceedings. At the

same time the judgment ignored all the eyewitness

evidence, subject to cross-examina-

tion, which had proved the truth of the case.

LEGITIMATING A CULTURE

OF DISHONESTY?

In Thailand’s civil code system Supreme

Court judgments set precedent, and the outcome

of this case may trouble some thoughtful

readers. After disappointments in the

Trial and Appeal Courts the foreign victim

raised many points to the Supreme Court in

the matter of child custody, in particular

whether a parent’s chronic lying and teaching

others to lie is material in adjudicating custody

of a minor child. The Supreme Court

declined to accept this view, ignoring even a

perjury conviction in awarding custody, signalling

as precedent that chronic lying by a

parent, and teaching a child to lie, are immaterial

to fitness for child-rearing in the

Kingdom.

[/b]What long-run consequences will this precedent

produce? Could the court’s stance be

related to the low standard of commercial

ethics seen daily, or to the brazen dishonesty

of so many public figures? Had the

Supreme Court set a different precedent,

could it have worked to raise the standards

of public and commercial ethics in future generations?

The Thai people must reach their own conclusions

on this important matter, but the

foreign victim himself, and his foreign associates,

were shocked beyond belief to read the

Supreme Court’s judgment.

OBSERVATIONS FROM FOUR

CASE STUDIES

The several foreigners involved in these cases

had some reassuring experiences and some

deplorable ones. The latter were shocking

injustices, which should happen nowhere

and certainly not in a country, like Thailand,

which advertises worldwide the equality litigants

enjoy before its courts. Several judges

dishonored the sovereign whose image

graced their hearing room by turning their

solemn chambers into Alice-in-Wonderland

theaters of the absurd.

ADVENTURES IN THAI JUSTICE PART FOUR—ALICE IN THAILAND PAGE FOUR

While miscarriages of justice can occur anywhere,

these cases dramatize two noteworthy

things in Thailand. First, despite great effort,

persistence, and the best legal counsel, litigation

against the powerful is prone to fail. In

the child custody case, a foreign parent and

his two children were cruelly separated for 15

years.

In the property cases, the foreign litigants

spent stupendous sums for over a decade,

with nothing to show except judgments of

dubious enforceability. At last report most of

the title deeds to the few remaining assets

against which the foreign victims might

(someday) levy judgment were “missing”

from the court document storeroom.

Second is the attitude of many civil servants:

stonewalling and denial rather than acceptance

and willingness to remedy manifest evil.

Just as the Law Society, the state-controlled

bank and the Ministry of Finance resolutely

ignored evidence of misconduct, for the better

part of a year Thailand’s Ministry of Foreign

Affairs has ignored the Diplomatic Note

from the foreign victims’ home government

mented abuses and compensation to the victims

for their losses.

On the positive side, senior Thai leaders (who

detailed), now have a splendid opportunity to

behavior documented in this series.

CalPERS mentioned in our first case study)

have

may

in Thailand. And Thai citizens may draw

their own conclusions about what needs

who might choose to sojourn in their

Kingdom.

politely requesting investigation of the docuhad

no role in any of the abuses of power here

prove they will no longer tolerate the kinds of

From

cases like those recounted here foreign individuals,

businesses, and official bodies (like

drawn conclusions about the rough justice

their persons and property receive

attention to alter the perceptions of foreigners

Publication of fair-use quotations for comment is welcome; please refer your readers for the full text to

<http://pws.prserv.net/studies>. For reproduction rights of any other type or for any other purpose please fax

Fran Collin at +1 610 254-5029. Fax all other enquiries to +1 617 623-1882.

ADVEN_4.PDF ADVEN_4.QXD ADVEN_4.IDX October 15, 2003

ADVENTURES IN THAI JUSTICE PART FOUR—ALICE IN THAILAND PAGE FIVE

Edited January 14, 2005 by taxexile

[qwertyuiop]

I can't get any of the links to redirect.... I'm on loxinfo

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I found it very slow to redirect but redirect it did

[Rumpole]

For all those expats who believe that the laissez-faire attitudes which appear to prevail in Thailand are a breath of fresh air compared to the seemingly over-regulated and over-legislated West, I sincerely hope for your sakes that you never have a brush with the “law” in Thailand from which you cannot extricate yourself with a smile and/or a strategically offered banknote. Otherwise, you might just start to think that due process and a relatively impartial judiciary are not such a bad thing, after all. It would appear that farang have about the same rights to a fair hearing before the Thai courts, as your average soi dog. But then, we already knew that, didn’t we?

Edited January 14, 2005 by Rumpole