A recording and transcripts of a conversation have been made available online which if true expose the extent to which Thailand’s senior judiciary is compromised and controlled by outsiders, and what a long road it will be to restoring any notion of the rule of law there.
The recording, released by a spokesperson of the removed government, is purportedly of a telephone conversation in mid-2006 between a top government official nicknamed “Phi Phed” and the then-secretary of the Supreme Court, Virat Chinvinijkul, together with Pairote Navanuch, a judge. The two parties discuss the problem of getting the members of the Election Commission to resign their posts over various serious allegations in connection with the former government, to pave the way for fresh elections (which were never held due to the military coup). The fact of the recording–the veracity of which has not been denied–has been reported in the domestic media, but the full details of its contents have not.
In the recording, the secretary and senior official share ideas on ways to get the commissioners to resign. The official requests advice on how the government should proceed and is advised that if the commissioners do resign then the Supreme Court will appoint its own people in their stead (under section 138 of the 1997 Constitution). Then the government officer wonders what can be done about the fact that there are cases pending against the election commissioners in the Criminal Court and Administrative Court. Virat reassures him that, “I can say that the resigning of the Election Commission would have a good effect on the case(s) under prosecution…” He then repeats his reassurance.
Further on, before Judge Pairote is brought into the conversation, the court secretary refers to him as having a “link” with the president of the Privy Council, the former unelected prime minister, General Prem Tinsulanonda. This link daily goes to the latter’s house before the Supreme Court meets, whereafter the general puts in a call to the president of the court. Subsequently, Judge Pairote speaks directly with the senior official and agrees that the members of the Election Commission must be forced to resign. The officer says that he will go and speak to the head of the commission personally, to which Judge Pairote replies, “You must tell him, or else it won’t be safe for him.” Of course, the commissioners refused to resign, forcing the judiciary’s hand despite their attempts to avoid having to act on the case.
The recording is remarkable not only because it brings out the full truth of the extent to which the senior judiciary in Thailand has been subordinated to other parts of government but also because it shows how far removed it has been throughout the entire political and constitutional crisis from basic notions of legality. At no point does the upholding of justice, rather than political expediency, appear to have seriously entered the minds of its most senior persons. Rather, the contents of the recording boil down to this: a top judge and court official together with a top government officer make a deal to get some people to quit their jobs, in exchange for which the courts will dispense with criminal procedure and justice and instead just let them off the hook. There is no thought of law here, just horse trading. The court is anyway subject to daily interference by outsiders. And that was before the September 19 coup: the May 30 special tribunal verdict against the former ruling party is an indication of how much worse things have become since, and how much worse they are yet to become.
Such revelations can be addressed properly only through extensive and open public debate and serious introspection. But whereas before the coup, that was difficult; today it is virtually impossible. As the government under the military coup group carries on with its agenda for a resurgent newly authoritarian state in Thailand, the mainstream media reaction to the recordings has been all but non-existent; and many of the websites hosting the recording and transcripts of the exchange are blocked under an increasingly onerous Internet censorship programme. Meanwhile, public debate and participation at all levels remains stifled by blanket propaganda, threats and coercion.
Notwithstanding, the Asian Human Rights Commission calls for as much public debate and discussion about the implications of this recording, even if not the contents of the recording itself, as is today possible in Thailand. Legal professionals, whose reputations depend upon the institutions in which they practice, should take the lead. If they and their peers do not act on this, it is likely that any exchange of views will quickly degenerate into another shouting match between defenders of the coup and supporters of the civilian regime that it deposed, which will be in nobody’s interests. Open collusion and political case fixing between two top jurists and a senior government official is surely a matter of immense national concern. Any attempt to keep the facts shut up is as much an act of folly as it is sheer madness. The implications of this recording can either be addressed responsibly and intelligently, in the open, or kept under wraps and allowed to fester and develop into further problems for the ordinary people. Ultimately, the choice is not just that of a military regime; it is that of every concerned person in Thailand.
