Article 44: Extreme situations call for extreme measures

Yes, the word “dictator” is indeed a “boo” expression. But let’s not forget that many democracies have fallback positions. Britain’s Civil Contingencies Act of 2004 allows for Her Majesty to act in ways that would make your hair stand on end, including the suspension of Habeas Corpus. Thankfully, it hasn’t been used (yet).

The Patriot Act in US has legitimised roving wiretaps, and Wikileaks has exposed a lot more dubious practices. The US president has power to make recess appointments to avoid House scrutiny – an example being the temporary appointment of the extreme-right-winger John Bolton as US ambassador to the UN.  Even Singapore has an internal security act that allows the executive to enforce preventative detention.

So the real question is whether general Prayut needs Section 44 or martial law. Critics will say he does not, but the situation in May last year was indeed exceptional. If the UK or US government had tried the same things – rice subsidies wasting billions of baht, slyly pushing through amnesty legislation at 4am and instructing the police to ignore massive arms caches in the provinces – it is likely that some extra-parliamentary mechanism would have been introduced.

Of course Thailand is not the UK or the US. That’s precisely the point.

Barry Kenyon