A SQUALID defence of ‘soldier’s rights’

 The European Union, the US State Department and other formidable entities have rightfully come down hard on Thailand’s National Council for Peace and Order (NCPO) for giving military officers authoritarian extra-judicial powers.

What’s even more appalling than the Orwellian initiative known as Order 13/2559, though, is the Foreign Ministry’s inane defence of it in the wake of criticism from overseas. Its simple-minded justification for the order further undermines Thailand’s international standing – quite contrary to the ministry’s mission – and insults the intelligence of Thai citizens.

The order issued on March 29 authorises military officers of at least sub-lieutenant in rank to conduct inquiries into ill-defined offences, make arrests and place people in detention without first obtaining a court warrant.

The office of the European Union in Thailand promptly released a statement pointing out that granting powers usually reserved for the police and the judiciary to military personnel “increases the risk of arbitrary detentions, breaches the rule of law and deprives citizens of essential legal protection and due judicial process”.

The US State Department urged the government to limit the role of the military in internal policing and allow civilian authorities to carry out their duties. This, it said, includes letting civilian courts handle the prosecution of civilians and safeguarding due process and fair trials.

Another statement, from a group of international human-rights organisations, calls on the ruling junta to revoke the order because it violates Thailand’s formal obligations to protect rights and sustain the rule of law. And a group of Thai law academics has come out to say the order issued under Article 44 of the interim constitution is illegitimate since Article 44 itself violates the rule of law by bestowing “too much power” on the prime minister.

These legal experts point out that NCPO order 13/2559 scoffs at the rule of law by authorising military officers who might have no legal background to handle criminal cases, detain suspects for seven days and search premises without court permission. Court warrants are an 

 essential restraint on the misuse of power, applied rigidly to procedures involving the police, who at least have some training in judicial matters. The law academics called on the citizenry to oppose this infraction of sensible civic procedure.

In response to all this condemnation, the Foreign Ministry adopted an absurd stance. In a statement issued after a meeting with an EU delegation last week, the ministry insisted that Thailand values “freedom of expression and human rights in accordance with international practices”. It said the order was “in line with legal procedures and the rule of law” and represented a “fair and effective” approach to bringing “wrongdoers” to justice.

The aim of Order 13/2559, the ministry said, was to enable military officers to help the police suppress “influential figures and those who are involved in organised crime”, such as trafficking in people and drugs. It will be helpful, it said, where normal arrest procedures could delay efforts to bring offenders to justice, or might endanger the investigators, or otherwise allow offenders to escape prosecution. Conviction, it pointed out, remains the sole discretion of the court.

As much as soldiers assisting the police in nabbing drug kingpins and gangsters might be a good idea – the one force ensuring that the other is doing its job – the Foreign Ministry ignores the grim fact that, wherever the military is involved, so is politics. 

While the EU, US, foreign rights watchdogs and Thai legal experts are raising the alarm about fundamental judicial principles being trampled, they are no doubt also aware of the ridiculous lengths to which this military government is willing to go in the name of ideology. Just how much special authority do Army officers need to seize the red plastic bowls that Thaksin Shinawatra had his people distribute for Songkran? How much extra-judicial power does it take to drag a woman before a military tribunal because she posted a photo of herself online holding a red bowl? If this is the rule of law in Thailand, we quake at the potential for harm when the government goes after offenders posing a genuine danger to society.