The Thai government won a landmark ruling this week at the International Tribunal for Compensation and Arbitration at The Hague, in a long-running case filed by Somchai Khoyuthitham, Wanida Songmathrathan and 63,537,248 other Thais.

These 63,537,250 Thais, representing the entire population of the country minus members of the amaat, the PAD and Buriram PEA Supporters Club, had successfully petitioned the Tribunal to seize the parliament buildings in Bangkok as partial compensation in a legal battle. The court had sealed the gates of Parliament, preventing anyone from entering, while steps were taken to auction the site to the highest bidder.

The Thai population had brought a case against its own government claiming that the state had a contractual agreement to deliver democracy to the people, but had consistently failed to do so ever since the 1932 revolution that brought an end to the absolute monarchy.

‘Every constitution has promised the people democracy,’ said a lawyer for the Thai majority, ‘and we’ve certainly had plenty of constitutions. But the amaat has always managed to subvert the idea one way or another. We therefore successfully sued for compensation from the Thai state for failing to honour their contractual obligation.’

At first, the Thai government pooh-poohed the case, perhaps forgetting that international courts do not operate by the same judicial principles as Thai courts, i.e. through a quiet word to the judge. Independent observers say that the Thai state put up such a weak defence that it deserved to lose the case.

In a complicated settlement, the Tribunal ordered the Thai state to compensate every citizen since 1932, dead or alive, with a sum calculated on GDP per capita, the minimum wage and the average price per vote in every election since 1933. The Thai state appealed both the verdict and the method of calculation. In particular, the Thai state argued that they were under no obligation to pay dead people.

In summarily rejecting the appeal as completely without merit, the Tribunal defended its decision to award compensation to dead people, on the grounds that there was compelling evidence that dead people regularly voted in Thai elections and deserved to be compensated when their votes consistently failed to produce a democratic government.

The Thai state then ignored the Tribunal ruling for a number of years, refusing to pay any compensation whatsoever. The Thai people therefore returned to the court, asking for the bailiffs to be sent in. Hence last week, parliamentarians were nonplussed to find the gates to the compound locked and a legal notice affixed to them, declaring that the property had been seized in forfeit.

The government, clearly embarrassed by this turn of events, despatched the Foreign Minister to the Netherlands to declare the members of the Tribunal persona not grata in Thailand and to argue the government’s case. Before setting out, the Minister said that the tribunal’s decisions were based on a serious misunderstanding of the facts.

‘In any distraint action of this kind, court officials are prohibited from seizing the “tools of trade” of the defendant’ said the Minister, apparently referring to the legal concept of ‘privileged goods’. ‘Clearly Parliament represents the country at work,’ he said.

The Tribunal, however, disagreed, noting that it had seized the parliament buildings, not parliament itself, which could meet under a tree for all it mattered. Furthermore, the Tribunal chair noted in a majority 15-1 opinion that the Thai government had failed to produce any evidence that parliament ever did any work at all. ‘Sittings take place only once a week and with extremely long vacation periods; most MPs miss them anyway. This can hardly be described as “work”.’

Attempting a different legal tack, the Minister then submitted a document of conveyance to the court showing that the Thai state had, some years earlier, transferred possession of parliament to a private entity known as CPO Strawberry Enterprises. The property was therefore no longer the Thai state’s and could not be seized.

The Tribunal was surprised that it was the Thai government and not CPO Strawberry that was making the appeal. While noting that the ink was still wet on a document supposedly written in 2007, the Tribunal admitted that this could, if validated, vacate the seizure.

The Thai government would therefore be allowed to resume possession of parliament on payment of a surety set at 37.7 trillion baht, the estimated value of the property. Once it could be confirmed that parliament was in fact owned by CP Strawberry Enterprises (whose legal address was an office on the 6th floor of Phya Thai Tower that contained nothing but a stained copy of the Singha Beer calendar for 2010), the Thai state would get its money back.

The Foreign Minister called this a massive victory for Thailand. ‘Parliament will re-open next week and the first order of business will be an emergency debate to pass a supplementary budget. This will levy a one-time poll tax of 600 baht on every Thai citizen.’

Asked what the tax was for, the Minister said that if the state had given away parliament, it was only natural to expect the people to pay to get it back.