Thai Democrat Party Lacks Budget To Hire Outside Lawyers

[webfact]

Democrat lacks budget to hire outside lawyers

BANGKOK (NNT) -- The ruling Democrat Party has insufficient funds to hire competent lawyers to help with the scandalous 258 million THB donation case and the 29 million THB budget misuse case, according to Culture Minister Nipit Intarasombat.

The Minister, as one of the party’s legal team members, stated that the party now had only Mr Bandit Siriphan from Seni Pramoj Advocates and Solicitors helping with the case. He added that the party could not afford to hire outside lawyers to help with the cases.

The Democrat Party used to hire lawyers from Seni Pramoj Advocates and Solicitors and the Kanung Ruechai Law Office to help fight the case in which the party was accused by the now disbanded Thai Rak Thai Party of hiring smaller parties to run in the election.

Mr Nipit noted that he had been doing the case from the beginning, making him know all the details and backgrounds of people involved with the case. However, he admitted that he had been absent from the legal team meetings due to his ministerial duties and hence could not express much opinions.

The Minister nonetheless confirmed that he would continue doing the cases because it would be too late to find new lawyers to carry them out.

-- NNT 2010-07-18

[Pib]

Yea, right....just a poor political party that also happens to be the ruling government party.

[TAWP]

That is highly possible as the party cannot just use the governments budget as their own party budget...even if Thaksin liked to pretend that his handouts came from their party and not stolen from the nations real tax payers.

[Pib]

Wasn't implying the Democratic Party would be using government money; meant they would be using their party's money received from political party donations. Plus, like in most any political party, many of the individual members are not exactly poor.

[SomTumTiger]

Not likely lol.

[slapout]

If you do not have the finances to play a pot limit game, what are you doing taking up a chair in the first place. If you call and lose, either get out or use reserves (yours or borrowed). That may be the big problem with Thai politics, the borrowing of monies/favors eventually comes down to a day of reckoning. Unlike the populace, there is apparently no big brother who is capable or wants to bale you out.

[Rucharee]

Why hire lawyers, when nearly half of the party members are lawyers themselves?

I still don't get it.

[Robby nz]

They certainly don't have a Thaksin to fund them as the PTP do.

They are also in the position of having to defend while the accusors are getting other organisations to do the work for them so I would suspect the accusors costs would be much less.

There is also the aspect that if the accusors fail as they have done with most of the impeachment accusations there is no consequense for them, whereas if the accused fail to defend the charges they can face hefty penelties.

The whole thing goes to show how far the PTP and their big boss is willing to go, destruction no object, gone way past accountability now.

[moe666]

Why hire lawyers, when nearly half of the party members are lawyers themselves?

I still don't get it.

Only a fool represents him or herself in a court of law.

[Rucharee]

Why hire lawyers, when nearly half of the party members are lawyers themselves?

I still don't get it.

Only a fool represents him or herself in a court of law.

Why not just get TPI to pay for the lawyer fee?

[Democrat]

The democrats have a lot of big money people to fund them. And these people have a lot more money than the PTP backers, but wont part with it. Part of one of the allegations they are defending is that some of the money went directly to party members. If this is true why do they not give it back! And what of all the extra donations they have been acquiring in the last 3 months, they could hire Robert Amsterdam to defend them with that money. Or they could just do what the DP, PTP, BJT, etc have been alledged of doing, use government funds. I do not envy the voters in some countries it is not a case of picking the worst of a bad bunch, it is the case of picking an evil one amongst the devils.

[Rucharee]

The democrats have a lot of big money people to fund them. And these people have a lot more money than the PTP backers, but wont part with it. Part of one of the allegations they are defending is that some of the money went directly to party members. If this is true why do they not give it back! And what of all the extra donations they have been acquiring in the last 3 months, they could hire Robert Amsterdam to defend them with that money. Or they could just do what the DP, PTP, BJT, etc have been alledged of doing, use government funds. I do not envy the voters in some countries it is not a case of picking the worst of a bad bunch, it is the case of picking an evil one amongst the devils.

What makes you think that Robert Amsterdamis not taking money from both side?

I would.

[ThaksinKharma]

The democrats have a lot of big money people to fund them. And these people have a lot more money than the PTP backers

No, they don't. Not even close. What Democrat supporter has 400 Billion Baht?

From the Thaksin Associates thread:

Thaksin Shinawatra has some 300 to 400 billion baht worth of assets.

He is believed to be generating 4 to 5 billion baht in profits a year, and has in total 400 billion baht worth of total wealth.

[Siam Simon]

The democrats have a lot of big money people to fund them. And these people have a lot more money than the PTP backers

No, they don't. Not even close. What Democrat supporter has 400 Billion Baht?

From the Thaksin Associates thread:

Thaksin Shinawatra has some 300 to 400 billion baht worth of assets.

He is believed to be generating 4 to 5 billion baht in profits a year, and has in total 400 billion baht worth of total wealth.

You're still not re-banned, SRJohn?

[Rucharee]

No more lawyer needed.

DSI already declared the government party innocent yesterday.

Go read your papers for more details.