16 November 1999 :

On November 16, a draft royal decree on the occasion of His Majesty the King's 72nd birthday was tabled at a cabinet meeting. Deputy Interior Minister Vatana Asavahame said the Interior Ministry had completed the draft royal decree based on the principles laid down by the Office of His Majesty's Principal Private Secretary. The law would set free some 30,000 prisoners, commute death sentences to life imprisonment and cut down serious jail terms by one-third, he added. However, the law would not cover "bad" and "very bad" convicts, drug producers and traffickers, and non-repentant prisoners who returned to jail for the same criminal act. As the law would be enacted on His Majesty's birthday, prisons were expected to release inmates under a royal pardon on December 5, Vatana said.