Thailand, explained.
Thailand's King Maha Vajiralongkorn inspects a guard of honour during the Trooping the Colour parade to mark his 72nd birthday celebrations at the Dusit Palace in Bangkok, 3 December 2024 (Manan Vatsyayana/AFP via Getty Images)
Progressive politicians in Thailand face lifetime bans from political office for doing what is core work for MPs the world over: proposing legal amendments.
Subscribe to The Informer for monthly expert analysis, and to Events for advance notice of visiting world leaders and distinguished guests.
You may unsubscribe from Lowy Institute newsletters at any time. For information on our privacy practices and how to unsubscribe, see our Privacy Policy.
Royal defamation law reform in Thailand: Lost in the echoRoyal defamation law reform in Thailand: Lost in the echo
Thailand’s National Anti-Corruption Commission announced recently it will indict 44 former MPs of the now-dissolved progressive Move Forward Party for seeking to amend Section 112 of Thailand’s criminal code, better known as the lèse majesté law. Twenty-five of the MPs are now with Move Forward’s successor, the People’s Party. If convicted, they face being barred for life from political office.
Formally, the law protects only the king, the queen, the heir apparent and regent from defamation or insults. However, courts have also punished people for comments about other royal family members, even long-dead kings from generations past. The law is by far the world’s harshest with up to 15 years’ jail per offence. Sentences are consecutive: people can face terms exceeding 50 years. And anyone can file a complaint, on which police usually feel obliged to act.
Move Forward proposed amending the lèse majesté law in 2020, after pro-democracy demonstrators demanded its abolition. All the while, the Party stressed its commitment to maintaining Thailand’s constitutional monarchy.
At face value, this should have been uncontentious. The proposals to allow honest criticism of the monarchy, to reduce punishment, and to limit who can file complaints, to prevent the law’s abuse, echoed earlier suggestions from Thais with impeccable royalist credentials – including King Vajiralongkorn and his late father, King Bhumibol.
In 2020, the then prime minister said King Vajiralongkorn “instructed [him] personally over the past two to three years to refrain from the use of the [lèse majesté] law”, and “does not want people to be punished for it”.
According to the book King Bhumibol Adulyadej: A life’s work (which the palace reportedly approved), the then monarch is cited as saying that, when criticism is prohibited, and people are jailed for lèse majesté, “the damage is done to the king”, noting monarchs are criticised in other constitutional democracies.
Borwornsak Uwanno, a former Secretary-General of the King Prajadhipok Institute, and Fellow of the Royal Institute, recommended the attorney-general be responsible for filing complaints, investigating and pressing charges, so as to prevent abuse. And staunch monarchist – and two-term premier – Anand Panyarachun recommended clearly specifying who could file charges, and replacing jail sentences with moderate fines.
Prior to the 2023 general election, other parties also proposed amending the law. Pheu Thai and Thai Sang Thai supported its parliamentary review. The Seri Ruam Thai Party leader saw no need for a separate royal defamation law, saying Thailand’s existing law – with far milder penalties – was enough. Thaksin Shinawatra (father of nominal Prime Minister Paetongtarn, and widely viewed as her Pheu Thai Party’s real leader) wanted its penalties reduced, and its complaints system revamped.
It seems all but inevitable that its 44 MPs – notably including the 29 now with the People’s Party – will be proclaimed guilty and punished, and the party itself potentially dissolved.
The Constitution Court singled out Move Forward, dissolving the party after controversially ruling that, by campaigning to amend the lèse majesté law, it threatened the monarchy and national security (contradicting an earlier Election Commission finding). But it was not unexpected. In 2020, the court annulled Move Forward’s previous incarnation in another legally contentious decision.
So, it seems all but inevitable that its 44 MPs – notably including the 29 now with the People’s Party – will be proclaimed guilty and punished, and the party itself potentially dissolved.
Conversely, Pheu Thai and Seri Ruam Thai not only went unsanctioned, but prospered, backflipping after the election to form a Pheu Thai-led coalition with their erstwhile conservative opponents, displacing the first-placed Move Forward.
Thaksin benefitted most. Returning to Thailand, from where he had fled in 2008 to avoid criminal charges, the king slashed his sentence from eight years to one. He was kept out of prison, and paroled six months later, allegedly being “seriously ill”. Soon discarding the neck brace he had donned after his return, within months, he was traversing the country campaigning for provincial candidates from his Pheu Thai Party, seemingly in the best of health.
Thailand’s conservative forces seem convinced they can use calls for modest lèse majesté reforms against progressive Thais without fear of repercussion or reproach. But, in so doing, they are going against the counsel of eminent Thai royalists, including those who they profess to extol. They would do well to heed Borwornsak’s sage advice, that the lèse majesté law is not immune from the Buddhist law of impermanence: arising, existing and eventually perishing as society’s ethical and cultural norms evolve.
Their legal tricks may well succeed in denying progressive parties power in the short term, certainly for the next several years. But, with more youthful Thais increasingly attracted to progressive, policy-based politics, and a 72-year-old monarch without any publicly acknowledged royal grandchildren, compromise along the lines that the eminent royalists have proposed would be prudent. After all, it would be with their support that the monarchy’s long-term future will be assured.
About the author
Craig Keating
Craig Keating is a former analyst, ex-diplomat, and long-time Thailand watcher.
Topics
The most-pressing world events explained by Lowy Institute experts and global contributors, in your inbox, every Thursday.
You may unsubscribe from The Interpreter at any time. For information on our privacy practices and how to unsubscribe, see our Privacy Policy.
