THAILAND

government: constitutional monarchy

state of civil and political rights: Partly free

constitution: signed by King on 24 August 2007

legal system: based on civil law system, with influences of common law

legislative system: bicameral National Assembly (Rathasapha) consists of the Senate (Wuthisapha) and the House of Representatives (Sapha Phuthaen Ratsadon)

judicial system: Supreme Court (Sandika), judges appointed by the monarch

religion: Buddhist 94.6%, Muslim 4.6%, Christian 0.7%, other 0.1%

death row: 413, including 50 women (as of 31 December 2015, according to the Department of Corrections). About 55% had been convicted of drug-related offences.

year of last executions: 0-0-0

death sentences: 7

executions: 0

international treaties on human rights and the death penalty:

International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (made reservation to the interpretation of Art. 6 which prohibits the death penalty for minors)

Convention on the Rights of the Child

Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment

Statute of the International Criminal Court (which excludes the death penalty) (only signed)

situation:
Under the Penal Code alone, the death sentence can be applied to 35 crimes, ranging from offences against the King, treason, murder, rape in which the victim is killed and arson, to robbery which results in death. Exploitation of position by a legislative official for his/her own benefit is also subjected to the punishment, although in practice no one has ever faced it.
The death penalty applies in Thailand also to heroin or amphetamine drug trafficking and especially when a prisoner is found guilty after pleading not guilty at the start of the trial. A guilty plea allows judicial leniency - 25 years to life in jail instead of execution for heroin trafficking and export.
According to the Thai Penal Code, prisoners who receive the death sentence can appeal for a royal pardon. The appeal must be made within 60 days of the verdict. Each prisoner can appeal only once.
If the pardon is granted, execution will be commuted to life imprisonment.
It is never known in advance when a death warrant is to be issued, and executions are performed only once in a while. Usually a death warrant arrives in the morning and the execution takes place in the evening of the same day. Before the day of execution, the police will take fingerprints from the prisoner to compare them to those in the prisoner's file to ensure that the wrong person is not executed.
If the prisoner is a Buddhist, monks will be invited to give a sermon, followed by the reading of the death sentence by the prison director.
A pregnant convict may not be executed until the baby is born. Insane prisoners are also spared execution, at least until they recover. If their treatment takes more than one year, the sentence is commuted to life.
On May 9, 2003 Thailand's Senate approved the bill banning capital punishment and life imprisonment for convicts younger than 18, a measure already approved by the lower chamber in November 2002. The maximum penalty for juveniles was set at 50 years in jail.
In a previous debate on this bill at the Senate, on March 17, 2003 several senators called for the complete abolition of the death penalty and for lesser jail terms for under 18-year-olds saying these people would be unable to live a normal life after 50 years in prison.
There are credible reports of police ill-treating and torturing suspects in pre-trial detention to extract confessions. Confessions are regularly used as evidence in capital trials, and defendants have maintained in court that police forced them to confess.
Thailand resumed executions in 1995 after a de facto eight-year suspension. Thailand may abolish the death penalty under the Third National Human Rights Plan for the years 2014-2018. “The goal of the plan is to abolish death penalty,” said Chanchao Chaiyanukit, deputy permanent secretary of the Ministry of Justice. Bowornsak Uwanno, the head of the junta-appointed Constitutional Drafting Committee (CDC), said he planned to add a clause in the new Constitution to explicitly ban the death penalty in Thailand.
On 26 March 2015, the National Legislative Assembly passed amendments to the Anti-Human Trafficking Act of 2008, allowing the death penalty in trafficking cases resulting in death.
On 12 July 2015, amendments to the Organic Act on Counter Corruption of 1999 came into effect, imposing a severe penalty regime, including the death penalty or life imprisonment, on foreign public officials, international organisation workers and state officials who have demanded or accepted bribes.
Although Thailand did not perform any judicial executions between 2004 and 2008, the practice resumed in August 2009, when two men convicted of drug trafficking were executed by lethal injection in the Prison of Bang Khwang in Bangkok.
In 2015, for the sixth consecutive year, no executions were carried out in Thailand.
Thailand has executed 325 convicts, including 3 women, since 1934, when it began using firing squads instead of beheadings, according to government figures.
According to Amnesty International, at least 7 new death sentences were imposed in 2015, compared to at least 55 issued in 2014.
As of 31 December 2015, there were 413 people on death row, including 50 women, according to the Department of Corrections. About 55% had been convicted of drug-related offences.

In December 2014, Thailand abstained on the Resolution on a Moratorium on the Use of the Death Penalty at the UN General Assembly. It is the third consecutive time that Thai delegates abstained on voting on the motion; Thailand voted ‘no’ in 2008 and 2007, when the motion was first introduced to the UN General Assembly.

news

Death penalty for violent crimes

THAILAND: TWO MYANMAR MEN SENTENCED TO DEATH FOR MURDER OF BRITISH BACKPACKERS

24 December 2015

Two Myanmar migrant workers have been sentenced to death by a Thai court for the 2014 murder of two

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THAILAND: DEATH SENTENCE UPHELD IN MURDER OF RATCHABURI MP

22 October 2015

The Supreme Court of Thailand confirmed the death penalty for Anantasak Srisawat, alias Sor Tor Tai, for

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24 December 2015 :

Two Myanmar migrant workers have been sentenced to death by a Thai court for the 2014 murder of two British backpackers on Thailand's Koh Tao island.
Zaw Lin and Win Zaw Tun will face execution for the killing of David Miller, 24, and the rape and murder of Hannah Witheridge, 23, on the picture-postcard resort island in southern Thailand.
"Both defendants are guilty of murder for which the penalty is the death sentence," an unnamed judge told the court, adding that they were also "found guilty of rape and conspiracy to hide the crime".
Both men, who arrived at court with their hands and legs shackled, deny killing the British pair, whose battered bodies were found on a beach on September 15, 2014.
Defence lawyers have accused Thai police of bungling their investigation and using the Myanmar migrants, both aged 22, as scapegoats.
Within days of their arrest Thai police said the pair had confessed.
But prosecutors said the evidence against the men was rock solid, including DNA traces found on Ms Witheridge's body as well as the suspects being in possession of Miller's phone and sunglasses.
Miller was struck by a single blow and left to drown in shallow surf while Witheridge was raped and then bludgeoned to death with a garden hoe.
Miller's parents and brother were at the court on Koh Samui but Witheridge's relatives did not make the journey to Thailand.
Rights groups say the case reflects a wider trend of low-paid migrant workers from neighbouring countries, including Myanmar, being blamed for crimes in Thailand where the justice system is easily bent by wealth and power.

(Sources: abc.net.au, 24/12/2015)

22 October 2015 :

The Supreme Court of Thailand confirmed the death penalty for Anantasak Srisawat, alias Sor Tor Tai, for the murder of former Thai Rak Thai MP Korbkul Nop-amornbodi in 2006.
The court upheld the death sentence passed on Anantasak, formerly a member of the Ratchaburi Municipal Council, by the two lower courts.
Anantasak and two other men, Winyoo Rattanawannee, 30, and Anont Phanrat, were convicted of collaborating in the murder of Mrs Kobkul on May 27, 2006, when they opened fire at her car with two M16 rifles at Khao Ngu intersection in tambon Chedihak in Muang district of Ratchaburi.
Mrs Korbkul was killed. Two other people in the car with her, Chatree Suparanant, her driver, and Pol Sgt Maj Saichol Kaewsaithong, were wounded in the attack.
The three men were arrested a few days later.
On March 31, 2011, the Ratchaburi Court sentenced Anantasak to death and handed down life sentences for Winyoo and Anont. The three were also ordered to pay 300,000 baht in damages. All three appealed.
The Appeals Court upheld the lower court's ruling. Anantasak appealed to the Supreme Court. Anont did the same but withdrew his appeal before the court read its decision.
The Supreme Court upheld the death sentence for Anantasak. The judgement was read in his absence as he is being held at Khao Bin Prison in Ratchaburi.
The full judgement will be sent to Anantasak at the prison.
The lower courts were told the motive for the murder was a business conflict.

(Sources: bangkokpost.com, 20/10/2015)

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Legislation

THAILAND: JUNTA ADDS DEATH PENALTY TO ANTI CORRUPTION LAW

14 July 2015

Under the new law published in the Royal Gazette, officials of both Thailand and foreign countries who have

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Extradition

THAILAND CONDEMNED FOR REPATRIATION OF 109 UIGHURS TO CHINA

10 July 2015

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10 July 2015 :

Thailand deported more than 100 Uighurs back to China, ignoring concerns that the ethnic minority faces persecution by the Chinese government, while protesters in Turkey, which had accepted an earlier batch of refugees, ransacked the Thai Consulate.
Deputy government spokesman Maj. Gen. Verachon Sukhonthapatipak said that Thailand had assurances from Chinese authorities about the safety of 109 Uighurs.
However, in Beijing, Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said that China would take action against those suspected of breaking law.
The group had been in Thailand for over a year, along with others who had fled China and claimed to be Turkish, Verachon said. Thai authorities sought to verify their nationalities before relocating them, he said.
"We found that about 170 of them were Turkish, so they were recently sent to Turkey," he said. "And about 100 were Chinese, so they were sent to China as of this morning, under the agreement that their safety is guaranteed according to humanitarian principles."
The Uighurs are a Turkic-speaking Muslim minority in China's far west Xinjiang region. The group has complained of cultural and religious suppression as well as economic marginalization under Chinese rule.
The office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees said it was "shocked" and considered Thailand's action "a flagrant violation of international law."
"I strongly urge the Thai authorities to investigate this matter and appeal to Thailand to honor its fundamental international obligations," Volker Türk, UNHCR's Assistant High Commissioner for Protection, said in a statement.
He said such deportations violate the right to protection against return to a country where a person has reason to fear persecution, and has been described by UNHCR as "the cornerstone of asylum and of international refugee law."
The U.N. agency said it had repeatedly brought up the matter of the Uighur refugees with the Thai government, and "in response, the agency was given assurances that the matter would be handled in accordance with international legal standards, and that the group would continue to receive protection."
China's position is that the Uighurs left the country illegally.
"China's relevant departments will bring those who are suspected of committing serious crimes to justice according to law," Hua Chunying told reporters. "As for those who are not suspected of committing crimes or who commit lesser offences, we will find proper ways to deal with them."
In Turkey, which has cultural ties to the Uighurs and agreed to take in the other 170 refugees despite China's objections, mostly Uighur protesters stormed and vandalized the Thai Consulate in Istanbul. The office was closed on Thursday.
The protesters waved Uighur flags and brought down the Thai flag, smashed windows and demolished pictures and furniture inside the consulate. Police allowed about 100 protesters to pray outside the consulate before taking nine of them away for questioning.
The Thai Embassy issued a statement urging its nationals in Turkey to be on alert for "an expression of dissatisfaction over Thailand's handling of the Uighurs who entered the country illegally."
It also advised tour guides against using the Thai flag while traveling in Turkey and urged the Thais to avoid any protest areas.
China has accused Uighur separatists of terrorism in Xinjiang, where ethnic violence has left hundreds of people dead over the past two years. Last year, Chinese authorities blamed a group of eight Uighurs for a knife attack that killed 31 people at a train station in the southwestern city of Kunming, after the suspects failed to flee the country. Three men caught before the attack were sentenced to death.
"For reasons of realpolitik, Bangkok callously treated these Uighurs as expendable pawns to be sacrificed to big brother China in clear violation of international rights standards," said Phil Robertson, Asia Division deputy director for Human Rights Watch.
The World Uyghur Congress, a German-based advocacy group, said that those repatriated could face criminal charges and harsh punishment, possibly execution, under China's opaque legal system — the reasons they fled China in the first place.

(Sources: AP, 09/07/2015)

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