Plea Bargaining And Thailand Law: Should It Be Allowed?
For victims and those outside the justice system
, it often seems that plea bargaining is admitting defeat. It is bowing to the pressures of time and money, and allowing crimes to go unpunished ... many people even argue that the existence of plea bargaining means that crime rates are higher, because people are not as fearful of the consequences of their actions. However, those in control for the laws know that it simply is not possible or even ethical to allow the massive delays that would occur in trying and sentencing offenders if there were no plea bargain process ... and that these delays would likely be unethical in themselves, as thousands waited in prison cells or had life saving tied up in bail for years.
The issue is a complex one worldwide, not just in Thai law but in many western countries also. However, today Thailand legal services look at the concepts and practicalities underlying the plea bargaining process in Thailand specifically, and look at whether it is actually constitutional under Thai law.
What is Plea Bargaining?
For those who mercifully been spared hours of watching Law and Order and other American crime dramas, plea bargaining is the practice of offering offenders a reduced sentence or other concessions (the ability to go to a certain prison, for example), in exchange for a guilty plea when their case goes to trial.
The Problem with Plea Bargaining Under Thai Law
In university, our future Thai business law and Thai criminal law leaders are taught the highest ideals of justice ... and unfortunately, plea bargaining is more a concession to the realities of an overburdened system than an expression of the highest ideals. Some of the problems with plea bargaining as contrasted with Thai law ideals include:
- The fact that plea bargaining seems to reward guilty people, and also to punish those who genuinely plead not guilty but are subsequently punished without concession.
-The fact that plea bargain arrangement are almost never a public process
-The reduced sense of deterrence from committing crimes, which is a key principle of the justice system Thailand law firms work under
- If there is strong circumstantial evidence against a person, they may be encouraged to plead guilty even if they genuinely did not commit the crime
The Advantages of Plea Bargaining Under Thai Law
The main advantage of plea bargaining under Thai law is that it allows an enormously stressed system to cope with the demands of what must, at times, seem like nothing more than an unruly population who cannot stay within legal bounds! There is such a heavy case burden on the legal system that if every case went to trial, it might literally be decades between the committing of some crimes and their legal conclusion. In many democratic societies, there is simply not enough voter pressure or interest in providing more resources for the legal system, and a dearth of Thai legal services and Thai law firm professionals, to make up sizing the system a viable option.
However, there are other, less commonly considered advantages of plea bargaining, including:
-The fact that it can spare victims the trauma of testifying
-The fact that taxpayer Baht are saved for more important activities
-The fact that if a matter proceeded to trial, the Crown case might not be quite strong enough to get a conviction, and some punishment is better than none.
by: Gregory Smyth
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