NLA nod for bill on cutting down on legal procedures

Deputy Prime Minister Wissanu Krea-ngam said the bill would not offer conditions that unnecessarily reduce the number of steps and it would also not affect the public’s legal rights to fight their cases. 

The justice system will still comprise three types of courts – the lower courts, Court of Appeals and the Supreme Court – after the bill becomes law. 

There are now 140 Supreme Court judges handling a pile of cases handed to them through the Appeals Court – a pile that rises every year. The judges now have 25,000 cases in hand, and seeking new personnel to cope with the work would not be easy as their abilities is also a key concern, Wissanu said. 

After a long debate on how the process could be shortened, and how plaintiffs and defendants would be guaranteed their legal rights, the bill won a 168-9 vote, with 13 members abstaining. A 21-member panel has been set up to further scrutinise the bill in a 15-day period.

According to the bill, there are six types of cases that can undergo scrutiny in Supreme Court: those related to public interest; those whose verdicts are against the Supreme Court’s standards; those with unprecedented verdicts; those with verdicts that go against other rulings; those with legal interpretation that would be beneficial to the judiciary; and those that at least three senior Supreme Court judges deem worthwhile.