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Punitive Processes? Judging in Thai Lower Criminal Courts

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 September 2020

Duncan McCargo
Duncan McCargo*
Affiliation:
University of Copenhagen
*
E-mail: duncan@nias.ku.dk
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Abstract

This article examines how Thai courts of the first instance deal with run-of-the-mill criminal cases. How do judges deal with criminal trials of a rather routine nature, often involving defendants from ethnic minorities and reflecting the particular conditions in the provinces concerned? Drawing on participant observation and interview research conducted mainly in two provinces in different regions of the country, the article examines the challenges faced by judges and court officials in dealing with heavy caseloads in a highly bureaucratized system where acquittal rates are extremely low. How far do such cases shed light on how judging is carried out in the majority of Thai courts? What kind of challenges do Thai judges face in adjudicating minor but often messy cases in order to fulfil societal expectations in line with their own understandings of justice?

Keywords

lower courtscriminal caseslegal ethnographyhostile environmentThailand
Type
Judging and Judgment in Contemporary Asia
Information
Asian Journal of Law and Society , Volume 8 , Issue 2 , June 2021 , pp. 324 - 347
Copyright
© The Author(s), 2021. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of Asian Journal of Law and Society

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Footnotes

•

The author would like to thank the ASEASUK/British Academy Research Committee on South East Asian Studies and the Leverhulme Trust for generously funding the fieldwork that made this article possible, as well as everyone who helped him to access and better to understand the various court cases discussed here. He is most grateful to David Engel for his contributions to finalizing this article and to an anonymous reviewer for some excellent comments.

*

PhD (London), Director of the Nordic Institute of Asian Studies and Professor of Political Science at the University of Copenhagen. His books include The Thaksinization of Thailand (co-authored, NIAS 2005), the award-winning Tearing Apart the Land: Islam and Legitimacy in Southern Thailand (Cornell 2008), and most recently Fighting for Virtue: Justice and Politics in Thailand (Cornell 2019). Correspondence to Duncan McCargo, NIAS, Øster Farimagsgade 5, DK–1353 Copenhagen K, Denmark. E-mail address: duncan@nias.ku.dk.

References

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