You wouldn’t perhaps guess this from looking at the streets of Bangkok, but Thailand does have traffic rules. The rather bemused Dutch gentleman who I recently assisted at Lumpini Police Station where he arrived carrying a traffic ticket, was not convinced.

His car had been found parked on the pavement. And for readers more used to American English let me explain that this is that part of the street that, theoretically at least, is reserved for pedestrians. His car had been clamped and he had been directed by friendly passers-by to bring the ticket under his windshield wiper to the police station.

While the police officer patiently explained that parking in this manner was an offence, and pointed to the list of infractions posted on the wall to prove the point, the Dutchman was profoundly sceptical. He’d seen hundreds of cars parked that way. The whole concept of Thai traffic law was alien to his experience.

But after all his protestations, he still had a clamped car. He paid the fine, muttering about police corruption (though he’d been given a receipt by a second officer – not the one who levied the fine, nor the one who gave him the ticket). I chose not to translate his remarks on this topic to save him the shock of discovering that in addition to parking regulations, Thailand also has laws on bribery and defamation.

Thailand has in fact loads of laws, lots of rules and lashings of regulations. The rulebook for the average civil servant is the size of a decent telephone directory.

And for good reason. The more the behaviour of those on the enforcing side of the social contract is constrained by written rules, the less we the enforced will have to suffer the consequences of government officials using their ‘discretion’.

This is another way of saying ‘making it up as they go along’, relying on their common sense, spirit of justice and native wisdom. Which could turn out to be indistinguishable from their ignorance, spitefulness and bloody-mindedness.

The problem of course is that the body of law quickly becomes a thing of elephantine proportions, far too unwieldy to actually use in governing our day-to-day activities. Rather than serving as guidelines for proper behaviour, rules become something to sidestep, to cut corners round, to observe only in the most perfunctory, superficial manner.

Until somebody is out to get you.

Hence the absurd farce of prospective PM Yingluck being investigated for stir-frying a wok of phat thai on the campaign trail or prospective ex-PM Abhisit being probed over the public display of his expertise with khanom khrok. Yes, improper solicitation of votes is a problem in Thailand; yes, this could take (and has taken) the form of free five-course meals for voters; so yes, there is some sense behind a regulation that forbids candidates from providing free food.

But does this have anything to do with phoney photo-ops designed to give the patently false impression that our millionaire politicians do the cooking at home? Well it could if you wanted to trip them up.

In blatant violation of the spirit of international free trade, an unquestioned good thing no matter who you talk to on the political spectrum, Thailand has an Alien Business Law that restricts foreign ownership of companies to 49%.

Now that is a real puzzler for any foreigner who wants to do business in Thailand but, not unnaturally, wants to retain control of this business. It must have taken all of a minute for someone to realize that you can set up your company with you owning 49% and the rest owned by a ‘Thai partner’ company. Which is in turn 49% owned by you and the ‘majority’ owned by another ‘Thai’ company where again you own 49%, and so on and so on. You could repeat this scam until the Thai ownership is 51% of an infinitesimally small fraction of the enterprise.

Another end run is to stipulate in the company charter that the 49% ownership that you have translates into 10 times more votes per share at the AGM than the 51% Thai ‘ownership’ (which could of course be ‘owned’ with money borrowed from you).

Ever since it was enacted, this law has been flouted, the authorities know it has been flouted, and everyone has simply pretended to see nothing of this.

Until True Move decides to throw some sand in the wheels of its competition and instigates an investigation into the foreign ownership of DTAC.

So beware. There are rules out there that could easily be misused to make your life a misery. Like the one that says foreigners must carry their passports at all times, for instance. You didn’t know? Tut-tut. Ignorance is no defence before the law.

I advise sewing a pocket into your jammies, just to be on the safe side.