Criminal court accepts Suthep's libel case against DSI chief

[steveromagnino]

As noted in Thailand's criminal libel/slandeer code, the showing of 'damage' is 'negligible' and that is the point that was stressed at the FCCT. Once a decision is made to prosecute under the criminal libel provisions, there is a conviction rate of 99%. As for the New York Times Co. v. Sullivan case, it creates such a high burden of proof on the plaintiff, it is 'nearly' impossible to meet. And there are no criminal libel/slander statutes in the US. It is a civil procedure that seeks compensation for tangible damages. Thank you for your input.

Thanks for this, very educational.

Do you mean a 99% conviction rate following agreement of the public prosecutor to pursue the case and following agreement of no agreement to settlement, or do you mean, 99% of all actions taken relating to libel law?

If it's based on the public prosecutor pursuing the case (ayakarn in Thai) then obviously they only pursue cases that they will likely win, they will choose not to follow cases that are marginal or that they would not win. So all the more marginal cases require that the plaintiff take legal action themselves (which from my understanding can be both civil and criminal), which is far from a 99% conviction rate (at a guess) and far more likely to go to settlement (the whole point of suing the person).

Perhaps also would be worthwhile to look at the damages awarded, relative to western legal system if we are going to look at things in detail.

For those wondering about how to attack such an action against you, the usual way for the defendant is to go through the police statement (the step to filing the charge at the beginning where the plaintiff runs through the facts and lays out what happened) and find any sort of a mistake, then press a case of 'giving a false statement' because it is the person who lays out the facts of what happened and signs off it being a true and fair record of what occured.

This is the leverage to get a settlement as is, from what I understand, usually the case.

In USA is it not quite true that several (minority number of) states have criminal defamation laws? e.g. Florida CH. 836 - so in fact it is true to say at a Federal level no criminal statute exists, but state by state and highly restricted in its application e.g. from Florida would clearly indicate it is a criminal offense (depending on the state and district) for banks and financial institutions.

Edited December 20, 2013 by steveromagnino

[pookiki]

As noted in Thailand's criminal libel/slandeer code, the showing of 'damage' is 'negligible' and that is the point that was stressed at the FCCT. Once a decision is made to prosecute under the criminal libel provisions, there is a conviction rate of 99%. As for the New York Times Co. v. Sullivan case, it creates such a high burden of proof on the plaintiff, it is 'nearly' impossible to meet. And there are no criminal libel/slander statutes in the US. It is a civil procedure that seeks compensation for tangible damages. Thank you for your input.

Thanks for this, very educational.

Do you mean a 99% conviction rate following agreement of the public prosecutor to pursue the case and following agreement of no agreement to settlement, or do you mean, 99% of all actions taken relating to libel law?

If it's based on the public prosecutor pursuing the case (ayakarn in Thai) then obviously they only pursue cases that they will likely win, they will choose not to follow cases that are marginal or that they would not win. So all the more marginal cases require that the plaintiff take legal action themselves (which from my understanding can be both civil and criminal), which is far from a 99% conviction rate (at a guess) and far more likely to go to settlement (the whole point of suing the person).

Perhaps also would be worthwhile to look at the damages awarded, relative to western legal system if we are going to look at things in detail.

For those wondering about how to attack such an action against you, the usual way for the defendant is to go through the police statement (the step to filing the charge at the beginning where the plaintiff runs through the facts and lays out what happened) and find any sort of a mistake, then press a case of 'giving a false statement' because it is the person who lays out the facts of what happened and signs off it being a true and fair record of what occured.

This is the leverage to get a settlement as is, from what I understand, usually the case.

In USA is it not quite true that several (minority number of) states have criminal defamation laws? e.g. Florida CH. 836 - so in fact it is true to say at a Federal level no criminal statute exists, but state by state and highly restricted in its application e.g. from Florida would clearly indicate it is a criminal offense (depending on the state and district) for banks and financial institutions.

Thank you for your input. I never knew that some States had criminal libel laws. According to the attorney at the FCCT, the 99% conviction rate was after the case was accepted by the prosecutor. But even then, a settlement out of court was encouraged. Wish you could have made the meeting.

[steveromagnino]

Thank you for your input. I never knew that some States had criminal libel laws. According to the attorney at the FCCT, the 99% conviction rate was after the case was accepted by the prosecutor. But even then, a settlement out of court was encouraged. Wish you could have made the meeting.

I don't really buy the 99% conviction rate completely, maybe 99% after the case was accepted by the prosecutor and also after both sides refused to settle perhaps.

In Dec 2012 the Abhisit case against Jatuporn was dismissed.

In July 2013 the Rosana case against Surapong was dismissed.

In August the Abhisit case against Jatuporn was dismissed.

http://www.nationmultimedia.com/politics/Court-rejects-Abhisits-suit-against-Jatuporn-30196946.html

In August the Thaksin case against Sondhi Limthongkul and television show host Sarocha Porn-udomsak was dismissed.

In August the PAD case against Jatuporn was rejected.

Just today we had the case of Senator Rosana against Jatuporn dismissed, regarding the claim of trying to switch jurisdiction of the legal case for PAD.

Now that's just a few that come to mind; I know that there are likely more; so against this list of 6+ cases in the last 12 months that were dismissed or rejected, are there really 600 cases that were found the other way? I don't think so.

More likely the 99% is a figure of speech.

These days, I don't so often attend FCCT functions, this one I would have liked to hear. Many speakers are interesting, but a fair few I have been shocked at the poor standards of speaker/presentation and reasoning skills. The choice of people has included some who I consider to be media hacks at best (and total media prostitutes at worst) masquerading as news people, and the audience seemed to actually be engaged with them.