Relationships between the Lèse-majesté Law and the Political Regimes of Thailand from the Age of the Customary State to the Age of Section 112 of the Criminal Code

Abstract

The author has done research on historical developments of Thailand’s lèse-majesté law which currently is section 112 of the criminal code of Thailand (enacted 1956), compared with Thailand’s political regimes categorized by the status of the king into four ages, i.e., the age of customary states, age of absolute monarchy, age of constitutional monarchy after the 1932 revolution and age of constitutional monarchy after the 1947 coup d'état. The finding is that there are robust relationships between the political regimes and the Thai lèse-majesté law. In detail, Thailand has continuously had the lèse-majesté law since the era of customary states the Three Seals Law enforced, the era of modernizing and westernizing laws in the absolute monarchical regime, the era of the constitutional monarchy using the first criminal code of 1908 until the present age using section 112 of the criminal code of 1956, which concurs with the characteristic of every political regime of Thailand, having the monarchy as an important element of the political system as the creator and owner of the state in the age of customary states according to religious believes, as the sovereign in the era of absolute monarchy and as the head of state exercising sovereign powers on behalf of Thai people in the ages of the constitutional monarchy. Nevertheless, the intensity of protection of the king by the lèse-majesté law, considered via enforcement or penalty when violated and the existence of exceptions, has varied according to the political regime in practice and political ideology of Thai people in each age. Therefore, when considering the problems of how section 112 of the present criminal code should be interpreted and enforced, whether it should have exceptions allowing criticism against the monarchy in good faith or not, and whether and how it should be able to be amended or not, jurists need to consider social facts regarding the political ideology to which Thai people adhere at present in particular. These facts should be substantiated by empirical research on the standard of social science research principles or portrayed by an openly public hearing.