Yingluck's lawyers present strategy

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Yingluck's lawyers present strategy
PRAPHAN JINDALERTUDOMDEE
THE NATION

BANGKOK: -- FORMER prime minister Yingluck Shinawatra will defend herself in the case over the rice-pledging scheme by focusing on the point that it was a "public policy" and her main "election campaign promise" to voters that she had to honour, her lawyers said when revealing their defence strategy.

The Supreme Court's Criminal Division for Political Office Holders is set to start hearing the case from May 19. She is being tried over her failure to stop corruption and massive losses in the rice subsidy scheme.

The former PM's legal battle would focus on the fact that the scheme was a public policy, which she had declared before Parliament and that constitutionally, governments have to implement policies that they promise to voters. The ruling Pheu Thai Party had made the rice-pledging scheme one of its main policies, hence the case cannot be taken to court, the lawyers said.

They also pointed out that since the Election Commission had approved this policy, Yingluck's government could legitimately implement it. Otherwise, how will future governments implement policies and how will political parties work for the people, they asked.

The three key attacks against the Yingluck government are that the rice-pledging scheme created debts for the next 30 years; the government was not able to stem losses despite warnings and recommendations from many parties; and that 16 farmers committed suicide over delay in payment.

Yingluck's team of lawyers will defend the allegation of failure to stop the scheme despite heavy losses by stating that though the subsidy led to losses, the difference in the pledged rice and sale price went to farmers, thereby improving their quality of life.

The lawyers say this scheme was fair to the farmers because they had been working hard before the country became industrialised and it was time they got paid for their work. To Pheu Thai, the scheme did not incur losses but could be considered an investment to improve human resources.

They also said that the losses incurred from the degradation of rice in stockpiles could not be blamed on the government, but rested with the contract partners who must abide by their contract to hand over the rice at the volume and quality pledged.

As for the allegation that the scheme was rampant with corruption at every step, former deputy finance minister Tanusak Lekuthai had pointed that the registration procedure of farmers under the rice-subsidy scheme was no different from the scheme offered by the Democrats.

They also said that the Yingluck government had paid attention to recommendations from all parties on how to prevent corruption in the scheme and had instructed concerned officials to prosecute those accused of corruption. These cases were underway before the government was brought down by the military coup.

The defence team will also present proof against allegations that 16 farmers killed themselves due to a delay in payment of the rice pledged with the government and prove the delay had been caused by protests staged by the People's Democratic Reform Committee.

Source: http://www.nationmultimedia.com/politics/Yinglucks-lawyers-present-strategy-30257226.html


-- The Nation 2015-04-02

[NongKhaiKid]

An election campaign promise that she HAD TO honour ?

Politicians around the world will be shaking their heads and muttering under their breath " thank God that won't catch on here. "

[MikeOboe57]

Smart move by her legal team. Now the prosecution has more than 1 month to adjust their "strategy" and plug any "holes".

[smutcakes]

Charge her for negligence, charge her for not stopping corruption, no problem, but charging her because 16 people took their own life is ridiculous.

[NongKhaiKid]

Smart move by her legal team. Now the prosecution has more than 1 month to adjust their "strategy" and plug any "holes".

Thais just love to sound off without any regard to the potential consequences. Just look how the BIB and DSI telegraph their punches then wonder why suspects have legged it etc.

The place for a defence to be revealed is in the court not aired in public.

The usual " he / she will prove their innocence in court " is more than enough but TIT.

[trogers]

Is that her team of lawyers or her PR team?

[greenchair]

An election campaign promise that she HAD TO honour ?

Politicians around the world will be shaking their heads and muttering under their breath " thank God that won't catch on here. "

Like Obama care? ??

A mirror image of the rice scheme.

Perhaps thailand should mirror image their remedy.

And file charges against Suthep, for holding the banks at ransom to stop the elected government from aquiring funds that fulfil it's responsibility to care for it's poorest people.

Which resulted in the deaths of 16 people.

[Robby nz]

Charge her for negligence, charge her for not stopping corruption, no problem, but charging her because 16 people took their own life is ridiculous.

Cant you tell the difference with what her lawyers said and what she is being charged with ?

Negligence is the charge nothing to do with the farmers taking their lives.

[jaidam]

If there is 1 silver lining for Yingluck here, it is that she legalized perjury during her tenure as PM, when she was forced to lie under oath in the asset concealment case. This could come in very handy here.

[trogers]

An election campaign promise that she HAD TO honour ?

Politicians around the world will be shaking their heads and muttering under their breath " thank God that won't catch on here. "

Like Obama care? ??

A mirror image of the rice scheme.

Perhaps thailand should mirror image their remedy.

And file charges against Suthep, for holding the banks at ransom to stop the elected government from aquiring funds that fulfil it's responsibility to care for it's poorest people.

Which resulted in the deaths of 16 people.

Are banks' main fiduciary duty to depositors or to a caretaker government who is prevent by law to put the country into more debts?

[robblok]

Charge her for negligence, charge her for not stopping corruption, no problem, but charging her because 16 people took their own life is ridiculous.

Cant you tell the difference with what her lawyers said and what she is being charged with ?

Negligence is the charge nothing to do with the farmers taking their lives.

Funny strategy.. sounds more like they know they are going to loose but are trying to make it about that she had to do this and thus gaining sympathy. Trying to win the case in the media while loosing it in court and then claiming it was political.

[JOC]

>>The ruling Pheu Thai Party had made the rice-pledging scheme one of its main policies, hence the case cannot be taken to court, the lawyers said.<< Quote

Has to be the most strange defense-strategy ever:

We promised to rob the people blind, so we had to follow through

Crying all the way to the bank??

[trogers]

>>The ruling Pheu Thai Party had made the rice-pledging scheme one of its main policies, hence the case cannot be taken to court, the lawyers said.<< Quote

Has to be the most strange defense-strategy ever:

We promised to rob the people blind, so we had to follow through

Crying all the way to the bank??

There are numerous roads to Rome. Why take the route to self-enrichment?

[JOC]

>>The ruling Pheu Thai Party had made the rice-pledging scheme one of its main policies, hence the case cannot be taken to court, the lawyers said.<< Quote

Has to be the most strange defense-strategy ever:

We promised to rob the people blind, so we had to follow through

Crying all the way to the bank??

There are numerous roads to Rome. Why take the route to self-enrichment?

Ever heard of greed in the DNA??

[smedly]

"Shinawatra" "PTP" and "honour" all presented to a court room together has a really bad ring to it

[lucky11]

Smart move by her legal team. Now the prosecution has more than 1 month to adjust their "strategy" and plug any "holes".

Are you serious!!!!

That is so p*** poor that it is laughable. In fact it is funnier than that. much funnier.

It is clear that any chance she had (none) has evaporated now - she is mincemeat and had better start packing her 'goody bag' and favourite cosmetics to take to her new room!!!.

[GeckosDiving]

An election campaign promise that she HAD TO honour ?

Politicians around the world will be shaking their heads and muttering under their breath " thank God that won't catch on here. "

Like Obama care? ??

A mirror image of the rice scheme.

Perhaps thailand should mirror image their remedy.

And file charges against Suthep, for holding the banks at ransom to stop the elected government from aquiring funds that fulfil it's responsibility to care for it's poorest people.

Which resulted in the deaths of 16 people.

[AleG]

An election campaign promise that she HAD TO honour ?

Politicians around the world will be shaking their heads and muttering under their breath " thank God that won't catch on here. "

She also promised one tablet per child, that didn't took off; she also promised a flat 20 Baht fare for BTS and MRT, that was forgotten about 5 seconds after the poll results came in, she also promised no more flooding and see how well that went...

Off the top of my head, that's three election promises that didn't happen.

Besides that, I don't remember the promise of setting up fake G2G deals so that connected companies could siphon off money from the rice scheme as being part of the electoral platform, maybe it was in very small print, written on the edge of the pamphlet.

[Srikcir]

An election campaign promise that she HAD TO honour ?

Politicians around the world will be shaking their heads and muttering under their breath " thank God that won't catch on here. "

Like Obama care? ??

A mirror image of the rice scheme.

Perhaps thailand should mirror image their remedy.

And file charges against Suthep, for holding the banks at ransom to stop the elected government from aquiring funds that fulfil it's responsibility to care for it's poorest people.

Which resulted in the deaths of 16 people.

Are banks' main fiduciary duty to depositors or to a caretaker government who is prevent by law to put the country into more debts?

The banks were in fact OVER CAPITALIZED and needed borrowers to sustain profits from loan interest charges. There was no economic reason for the banks to reject government loans other than the threat of physical harm by the PDRC.

[robertson468]

An election campaign promise that she HAD TO honour ?

Politicians around the world will be shaking their heads and muttering under their breath " thank God that won't catch on here. "

Like Obama care? ??

A mirror image of the rice scheme.

Perhaps thailand should mirror image their remedy.

And file charges against Suthep, for holding the banks at ransom to stop the elected government from aquiring funds that fulfil it's responsibility to care for it's poorest people.

Which resulted in the deaths of 16 people.

You need to get your facts right. It was not a case of Suthep holding the Banks to ransom that stopped the Farmers from getting paid, it was because Yingluck had dissolved Parliament and no longer had the authority to access the funds to pay the Farmers. So much for Pua Thai thinking of "the poor Farmers"!

[Tatsujin]

I'm still amused after all these years about how well Thai's can lie through their teeth, with a smile on their face, AND totally 100% believe every word that comes out of their own mouths.

[trogers]

An election campaign promise that she HAD TO honour ?

Politicians around the world will be shaking their heads and muttering under their breath " thank God that won't catch on here. "

Like Obama care? ??

A mirror image of the rice scheme.

Perhaps thailand should mirror image their remedy.

And file charges against Suthep, for holding the banks at ransom to stop the elected government from aquiring funds that fulfil it's responsibility to care for it's poorest people.

Which resulted in the deaths of 16 people.

Are banks' main fiduciary duty to depositors or to a caretaker government who is prevent by law to put the country into more debts?

The banks were in fact OVER CAPITALIZED and needed borrowers to sustain profits from loan interest charges. There was no economic reason for the banks to reject government loans other than the threat of physical harm by the PDRC.

How about a govt not authorised to go into debt? A bank can lend but the loan cannot be honoured by the country, because an illegal act makes a contract void.

So a bank holding lots of cash of depositors can go out and make insecured loans to any Tom, Dick and Harry? If so, the friends and relatives of bank management would be at the front of the queue.

[The Deerhunter]

A post 5 lines above!

Best prices on flight tickets to any destination

[JOC]

An election campaign promise that she HAD TO honour ?

Politicians around the world will be shaking their heads and muttering under their breath " thank God that won't catch on here. "

Like Obama care? ??

A mirror image of the rice scheme.

Perhaps thailand should mirror image their remedy.

And file charges against Suthep, for holding the banks at ransom to stop the elected government from aquiring funds that fulfil it's responsibility to care for it's poorest people.

Which resulted in the deaths of 16 people.

You need to get your facts right. It was not a case of Suthep holding the Banks to ransom that stopped the Farmers from getting paid, it was because Yingluck had dissolved Parliament and no longer had the authority to access the funds to pay the Farmers. So much for Pua Thai thinking of "the poor Farmers"!

You are all equally wrong.

The money was blocked by the EC, making a political statement.................

[klauskunkel]

Yingluck's lawyer team: Here is what we are going to do to defend Yingluck...We will do this, that and the other.

Prosecution team: Thanks, guys. Appreciate you making our job easier.

Yingluck's lawyer team: Shucks, we spilled the rice, no we spilled the beans. It's all a smokescreen, we are not going to do what we said earlier...we are going to do something else now. (but in reality we are going to do what we said, there that should confuse them mightily, I am sure, I am confused myself)

[JOC]

The solution is right in front of us:

Insanity plea!!

The truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.................

[EnglishJohn]

Oh dear, she's sunk.

They should be showing how Yingluck did not ignore all the warnings of corruption and actively worked to prevent corruption in the scheme.

Repeating the same old rhetoric about what the scheme was is irrelevant and presumably intended to gain sympathy from their target audience.

Their statement that the government were not to blame for paying all that money to warehouses who did not bother to look after it is a point for the prosecution, not the defence !. That kind of corruption is what everybody was warning her about and yet they did nothing.

[MikeOboe57]

Smart move by her legal team. Now the prosecution has more than 1 month to adjust their "strategy" and plug any "holes".

Are you serious!!!!

That is so p*** poor that it is laughable. In fact it is funnier than that. much funnier.

It is clear that any chance she had (none) has evaporated now - she is mincemeat and had better start packing her 'goody bag' and favourite cosmetics to take to her new room!!!.

No.

Apologies for sounding ambiguous in my first sentence.

[Baerboxer]

Charge her for negligence, charge her for not stopping corruption, no problem, but charging her because 16 people took their own life is ridiculous.

Would seem so. But if it was a ploy to introduce the late payments to farmers it's worked, The defense will have to now explain why the payments were late from months before the protests. Similarly they will have to show that the farmers received the benefits from the higher prices, contrary to the World Bank report, and explain why this is now a subsidy when it was repeatedly touted as a self-financing scheme that could be taken off budget by the government.

Again they're trying to ignore Yingluck's non-attendance at chairing meetings and her repeated assertions that there was no quality, inventory or corruption problems.

Charging her for creating the situation of rising debt, no income, false payment promises is one thing. Responsibility for the individual suicides a tad too far.

[Baerboxer]

Oh dear, she's sunk.

They should be showing how Yingluck did not ignore all the warnings of corruption and actively worked to prevent corruption in the scheme.

Repeating the same old rhetoric about what the scheme was is irrelevant and presumably intended to gain sympathy from their target audience.

Their statement that the government were not to blame for paying all that money to warehouses who did not bother to look after it is a point for the prosecution, not the defence !. That kind of corruption is what everybody was warning her about and yet they did nothing.

Your're right. But they can hardly explain why they chose to ignore all the warnings and do nothing!