Suvarnabhumi to open special airport court for foreigners on Monday

[chooka]

How many other airports around the world have built in courts? What sort of message would this send to tourists on arrival apart from Thailand must be a lawless society. Hardly a way to make them feel safe and secure.

They will need to post prominent signage for tourists to see indicating where the courthouse is situated in the building and allow easy access to both arriving and departing tourists. Maybe the stewards can hand out leaflets and maps on the plane when they hand out the arrival cards.

Dear valued tourist, if your are mugged, assaulted, raped or simply pick pocketed in our world class facility please feel free to attend our courthouse where a settlement to the benefit of all parties can be negotiated. (let's say 50/50 split for you and your assailant)

Every airport in the world has daily crimes. Why do you think your home airport is special and does not have them? I am glad to see Thailand trying to help the tourist. Well done.

Yes you are right, here is a list of incidents for Melbourne airport and surrounding area, last three months. A total of 29 incidents which include traffic accidents. Hardly justifies setting up a tourist court.

09/11/2013 Assault

09/10/2013 Traffic TRAFFIC ACCIDENT, PROP DAMAGE

09/09/2013 Traffic TRAFFIC ACCIDENT, PROP DAMAGE

09/05/2013 Traffic DUI ALCOHOL OR DRUGS

09/04/2013 Missing Person MISSING PERSON

09/03/2013 Drugs DRUG CASE P/P/S/D/T/M

09/02/2013 Theft THEFT, PROP, SHOPLIFTING

8/31/2013 Assault BATTERY

08/29/2013 Traffic TRAFFIC ACCIDENT REPORT

08/29/2013 Property Crime FOUND PROPERTY

08/27/2013 Breaking & Entering BURGLARY/NON-RESIDENTIAL F/E

08/27/2013 Disorder HARASSING TELEPHONE CALLS

08/26/2013 Traffic TRAFFIC ACCIDENT, PROP DAMAGE

08/25/2013 Theft THEFT OF PROP

08/24/2013 Property Crime LOST/DAMAGED PROPERTY

08/22/2013 Property Crime CRIMINAL MISCHIEF

8/22/2013 Traffic TRAFFIC ACCIDENT, PROP DAMAGE

08/08/2013 Property Crime TRESPASS

08/03/2013 Breaking & Entering Burg to Res

07/30/2013 Theft Retail Theft

07/28/2013 Theft Theft

07/27/2013 Traffic DUI

07/25/2013 Liquor Alcohol Offense

07/11/2013 Arrest Arrest: Prob Violation-Or Commty Cont Re Unk/Fel/Misd/Juv Non Critria

07/08/2013 Traffic PI Accident

06/26/2013 Family Offense Domestic

06/25/2013 Traffic PD Accident

06/24/2013 Family Offense Domestic Bat

Edited September 18, 2013 by chooka

[Cuban]

How will this ever work?

[Puschl]

250 a day changed to 1,980 total from January to August. Which is it? 60,000 or 1,980?

1980 cases in 8 months works out to nearly 250 per month - so I'd go with lost in translation, or monthly deliberately changed to daily for greater effect. The shocking thing is, nobody thinks a crime every 6 minutes in Swampy is unbelievable. In fact it sounds like a realistic success rate for the 1000 Baht taxi punters. But there's no way a 46sqm court could handle that many cases decently. 6-10 per day OTOH sounds manageable.

[bigbamboo]

Maybe they should put up a gallows in front of the airport entrance. Might be a better deterrent than the "No Drugs" signs.

[tingtongteesood]

In yet another example of how overrun this country is with tourists,

Makes it sound like there are too many tourists like they don't want them here, so maybe we should all take our money elsewhere...

[MikeOboe57]

Doesn't sound like an "Airport Court" to me. It is more a 7x7 meter shack with a video link to the Samut Prakan provincial court where the judge and probably all court officials will be sitting. This also implies that they are not going to hire additional judges for their "airport court".

[Bender]

How many other airports around the world have built in courts? What sort of message would this send to tourists on arrival apart from Thailand must be a lawless society. Hardly a way to make them feel safe and secure.

They will need to post prominent signage for tourists to see indicating where the courthouse is situated in the building and allow easy access to both arriving and departing tourists. Maybe the stewards can hand out leaflets and maps on the plane when they hand out the arrival cards.

Dear valued tourist, if your are mugged, assaulted, raped or simply pick pocketed in our world class facility please feel free to attend our courthouse where a settlement to the benefit of all parties can be negotiated. (let's say 50/50 split for you and your assailant)

Every airport in the world has daily crimes. Why do you think your home airport is special and does not have them? I am glad to see Thailand trying to help the tourist. Well done.

trying to help tourist?!!! you have to kidding yourself.

All this circus is just about "saving face"

[hellodolly]

250 crimes per day at the airport? Wow,

Anything that's going to put pressure on these crooks and scammers has to be welcome. Big Like from me.

oops, just read the full article, someone can't do arithmetic.

Read the article it works out to roughly 8.5 a day.

Edited September 18, 2013 by hellodolly

[ericthai]

Two years ago I had a Star Alliance flight to Thailand. Booked by Lufthansa operated by Thai Airways.

In Chiang Mai I had two boarding cards .At Swampy airport I showed my boarding card for Frankfurt to

service stuff asking for the gate. The gate was wrong, they sent me to another gate -Airplane started already.

I went back to the stuff who gave me the wrong information. Big problem for them (I had silver card for Thai Airways.)

They arranged to have a flight by Lufthansa in business class two hours later.

And my baggage? They ask my home address.

I had my baggage at home, no customs check.

If the service is like this, I can accept.

But my case is more an exception than reality.

A Court can be useful, but I have some doubts.

This is not unusual as it happens all the time in airports all over the world. Has happen to me many times.

When you get off of a flight and have a connecting flight you should check the flight board for changes.

I'm sure that customs scanned your luggage.

However in any case I don't see what this has to do with a court at the airport.

[wooloomooloo]

A magnificent structure if I've ever seen one. I love Swampy particularly airside and never get bored with it.

[bander]

Interesting wording in the article:

In yet another example of how overrun this country is with tourists,

The problem isn't that the country is overrun with tourists. The problem is that people at the airport insist on scamming them.

Why not take care of that problem instead of going through all this trouble creating a separate court? While this seems like a move in the right direction, nobody wants to get caught up in court on their holiday just because the authorities couldn't do their job and limit robbery at the airport...

I could also see this becoming a tool for getting more money out of farang, but hopefully I'm being overly-cynical.

Precisely, getting more money out of falang is the only thing they want. "The last check bill before leaving the kingdom"

[Thai at Heart]

How many other airports around the world have built in courts? What sort of message would this send to tourists on arrival apart from Thailand must be a lawless society. Hardly a way to make them feel safe and secure.

They will need to post prominent signage for tourists to see indicating where the courthouse is situated in the building and allow easy access to both arriving and departing tourists. Maybe the stewards can hand out leaflets and maps on the plane when they hand out the arrival cards.

Dear valued tourist, if your are mugged, assaulted, raped or simply pick pocketed in our world class facility please feel free to attend our courthouse where a settlement to the benefit of all parties can be negotiated. (let's say 50/50 split for you and your assailant)

Every airport in the world has daily crimes. Why do you think your home airport is special and does not have them? I am glad to see Thailand trying to help the tourist. Well done.

Committed by the passengers?

They have that many petty crimes that can be settled just like that? I somehow don't think so.

[timewilltell]

I think people are giving judges a hard time. A small number of them maybe corrupt and quite a few more may be infected with Thai superiority / xenophobia and thus pro Thais but I think most are pretty fair. However the laws are archaic and full of loopholes which are twisted into delay and adjournments by the Defence lawyers all at the expense of the Claimant because costs (other than court fees) are not recoverable.

Worse still is the fact that the police are their own mafia and totally out of control. Maybe these courts are an attempt to bypass the police and bring more justice to Thailand in which case that's a good thing.

I wonder what they will do about translators because a defendant can refuse ay translator that is not registered with the court which the judge can overrule but any judgement will then be open to objection and retrial.

There are any aspects of Thai law that are simply unfair and unjust but you will ave a hard time explaining the principles of justice to any Thai in the legal profession since they are mostly as close minded as the rest of the society. Anyway if nothing else it will highlight the issues for foreigners bringing cases to court, the judicial process and problems of translation before ASEAN does along where English is the language of business and I suppose will be the language of contract. Translating contracts into Thai and then using the Thai translation as the predominant version just ain't going to work - but once again Thais will just not 'GET' the problem.

Interesting times ahead.