Life under the rule-breakers’ rules

Foremost in the espoused rationale for the 2014 coup was the need for law and order, and the reasoning was widely accepted after a decade of unruly street protests, shocking bursts of violence and chronic political instability that had the economy reeling. Anyone who worried about the return to military rule, though, was acutely aware that those seizing power by coup were, in doing so, committing one of the severest crimes on the books.

It is thus galling in the extreme that the junta, the National Council for Peace and Order, is making laws of its own that are further damaging the country’s international standing and its aspirations for democracy. The law-breakers are now dictating how the public referendum on the next constitution is to proceed and is persecuting everyone who dares challenge its decisions.

Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha has repeatedly called on citizens to respect and comply with the law – including his orders, which he purports to be law. It is a ridiculous appeal coming from the chief instigator of the coup, which was itself against the law. In theory, orders from the ruling regime could indeed be deemed law, but, given the junta’s pledge to retain power only temporarily, it should be enforcing its laws with care, applying checks and balances for accountability’s sake even in the absence of proper democracy. Certainly none of its imposed laws should limit or violate basic rights, and yet they do.

Article 44 of the provisional constitution assigns excessive authority to the premier, enabling him to enforce laws without any measure of accountability. It is even arguable that the regime’s legal advisers who scripted these laws for it betrayed their professional ethics. Nor should the National Legislative Assembly be enacting laws, since it is in no way representative of the people’s will. Its laws merely enable the junta’s rule and do not protect the people. Article 61, its law concerning the referendum, is designed to push citizens to endorse the draft constitution rather than maintain order during referendum voting, and allows for no free discussion or broad review of the draft’s contents, as would be the people’s basic right under international norms. 

It is surely human nature to seek agreement and consensus on issues, and yet the junta alone maintains the right to proclaim the draft sound and acceptable while denying everyone else the right to suggest otherwise. It has gone so far as to distinguish between people “testing” the charter contents and criticising it in “criminal” ways. Article 61 stipulates that anyone distributing false, aggressive, harsh, rude, seditious or threatening messages, pictures or comments through the media in an attempt to influence how others vote or don’t vote is to be seen as instigating conflict, the most serious of crimes in this regime’s eyes.

Rather than enshrining freedom of expression as people prepare to vote on the new constitution, Article 61 creates an atmosphere of fear among those very people, threatening them with up to 10 years’ imprisonment should the generals decide they’ve violated this specious legislation.

If the laws produced by this regime are bad, the way the laws are implemented are even worse. The junta has exercised Article 44 and Article 61 with brute force and twisted the intent of the laws regarding computer crime and lese majeste for its own political purposes, in suppressing critics and anyone else whose ideology doesn’t perfectly dovetail with its own. Activists have been arrested – even in one instance the mother of a student activist – on charges of sedition and lese majeste, in cases that any right-minded person can see are utterly nonsensical. Once convicted, even for making a joke online about the prime minister, the jail terms are severe.

If the generals genuinely seek reform in legal matters, they themselves should make it a priority to better understand the rule of law.