The judicial process in Thailand is especially tricky to figure out.

Just this week the international media showed pictures of former Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva climbing the many steps of the Criminal Court to be formally charged with murder.  Commentators noted that even if prosecution of a PM for a crime of this severity is a first for Thailand, it is very much a selectively political case and few believe there is any serious chance of his future appearances being in leg irons.

But there is something decidedly odd about this case.  And I’m not talking about how someone with the influence and resources of Abhisit can get bail when the like of Ah Kong of the lèse majesté SMS get banged up while on trial. 

Far from being unusual, this is a well-accepted tradition in Thai jurisprudence.  Those with power and influence are automatically granted the mercy of bail so that, being powerful and influential, they will refrain from exploiting that power and influence.  It is the terminally ill, poverty-stricken 62-year-olds who represent the real threat to the Thai state and who must be kept behind bars until proven guilty (as they inevitably will be).

No, what was truly odd about Abhisit’s brief courtroom appearance was the absence of his co-accused, Suthep Thaugsuban.  Suthep asked for, and was given, a 30-day postponement of his arraignment on the grounds that he was ‘busy’.  Busy organizing anti-government protests (or anti-democracy protests depending on your point of view), which he has been conducting in a way that has earned him a second charge, this time of rebellion.

Now Thai trials suffer numerous hiccups on their meandering way to a verdict and a common one is for a witness to inform a court, often without warning, that they are unable to attend.  Almost invariably this is a prosecution witness, normally a government official, most often a police officer.  Their excuse is ‘tit ratchakan’ and as soon as judges hear that, play is called off for the day.

Now ‘ratchakan’ means ‘government business’ and ‘tit’ (the first stop is unaspirated and the last is unreleased so you can stop giggling at the back, it doesn’t sound anything like that) means ‘stuck’ and forms part of the words for ‘traffic jam’ and ‘addict’.  So this expression means something like ‘tied up with government business’. 

This excuse halted the Tak Bai trial a dozen times or more (this was the trial of the survivors, you will remember, not of those responsible for the deaths of the 84 civilians) before the whole shebang was abandoned, wasting everyone’s time and money (except of course the government witnesses who never bothered turning up anyway).

But Suthep’s excuse seems somewhat novel.  It seems to be ‘you can’t move forward with prosecuting me for this crime because I am too busy committing more crimes’. 

One hesitates to believe that the courts will now approve a petition from an alleged rapist for a delay in the case because he’s too shagged out after last night’s escapades.  Or from an accused housebreaker who argues that he can’t come to court today, yeronner, being as how he’s scoping out his next victim’s property.

Another set of absentees from the judicial process are 13 co-organizers of the anti-whatever protests along with Suthep.  The police went to the courts and argued that they were doing and saying pretty much the same things as Suthep and if he’s been done, so should they.

I mean, on counts of Article 115 of the Criminal Code (‘Whoever instigates any member of the armed forces or the police forces to desert or not to perform his duties …’) or Article 138 (‘Whoever, resisting or obstructs an official … in the due exercise of his functions …’) or Article 215 (‘Whenever ten persons upwards being assembled together do or threaten to do an act of violence, or do anything to cause a breach of the peace …’), it does look like they have a case to answer.

But I must be missing something because the Criminal Court threw out the police request.  The House had been dissolved already, noted the court (a caveat that occurs nowhere in the law) and in any case, the court believed the situation will improve.

So the next time you get stopped for running a red light, you just have to wait till Sunday morning and argue that the traffic has improved, so no need for a ticket.  Or when you get caught fiddling your tax return, just wait till there’s an uptick in the economy and say everything’s getting better, so why fine me?

And have things improved?  That’s not what the media, the government, the protestors, the party that may or may not still be Democrat, the military or the capitalists are telling us.  And one of the thirteen, Nititorn Lamlua, has decided to call publicly for an invasion of the US Embassy.  That seems a prima facie violation of Article 134 (‘Whoever, defaming, insulting or threatening a foreign Representative accredited to the Royal Court …’) and not that far off a declaration of war.

But it would be no use trying to get another warrant against him.  Even if one was issued, he wouldn’t be free to turn up.  Next week he’s going to be too busy breaking the law by disrupting candidate registration.

About author:  Bangkokians with long memories may remember his irreverent column in The Nation in the 1980's. During his period of enforced silence since then, he was variously reported as participating in a 999-day meditation retreat in a hill-top monastery in Mae Hong Son (he gave up after 998 days), as the Special Rapporteur for Satire of the UN High Commission for Human Rights, and as understudy for the male lead in the long-running ‘Pussies -not the Musical' at the Neasden International Palladium (formerly Park Lane Empire).