Weird News
Your free weekly newspaper since 2008
issue 3 20 13 March 2015
To Hull And Back Sudoku Classifieds Claret And Blues
the truth
...may not set you free in defamation cases
hua hin, THAILAND AWOL has learned this week about a legal case that highlights an issue which has come to the fore in recent months, and that issue is the defamation laws in Thailand, and more importantly, how easy it is to be accused under these laws, which are far stronger than most foreigners are used to in other countries. For legal reasons we cannot go into much detail of the case in question, although we do hope that we can report on it once it has completed; however the basics of it are that a Belgian family, who were staying in Hua Hin, accused another man of indecently touching their young son, and this went to court and was subsequently dismissed by the judge. The family claim to have video evidence of the accused man confessing to this, but this has never been shown in court. The accused man then sued the mother for defamation, and this case is due to begin on 23rd March. The husband is now trying to raise funds so he can post bail for his wife, and details of that and the story from their perspective can be found online at www. gofundme.com/SaveMyLWife. Defamation refers to a category of claims based upon intentionally harmful or false statements “published� in spoken or written form to third parties. Thai law makes no general distinction between spoken (slander) and written (libel) defamation. Further, and of critical importance, is the fact that in Thailand a party can be subjected to civil or criminal litigation for defamation, or both. The defendant is invariably placed in the position of having to prove that their statement was true to escape liability, rather than what might be expected, the plaintiff having to prove it is false. If someone is found guilty in a criminal defamation case, they can face up to two years in prison and up to 200,000 baht in fines, which is no laughing matter.
Victor
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