Impartial investigation vital in Jomsap case
Nobody can be trusted to impartially investigate his or her own possible wrongdoing.
As US founding father James Madison noted, “No man is allowed to be a judge in his own cause, because his interest would certainly bias his judgement and, not improbably, corrupt his integrity.”
Thus an impartial organisation – not the Royal Thai Police – should investigate the force’s handling of teacher Jomsap Saenmuangkhot’s case. Was the police investigation faulty, leading to her being wrongly jailed for 18 months in the hit-and-run case?
It appears, for example, that witnesses told police the guilty driver was male, but the teacher is female. They also reported the hit-and-run car’s licence-plate number, but couldn’t see the issuing province – and both the teacher’s car and that of a male from another province carry the same number. And the male driver, tracked down by the teacher’s friends, insists he was the guilty party, not the teacher.
While the case is being impartially investigated, the police should stop threatening Jomsap by saying that, if they have correctly identified the guilty party, it would take the teacher to court for claiming otherwise.
Let justice not only be done, but be seen to be done.
Burin Kantabutra
