Transcript of the above video: 

As the title of this video suggests, we are posing the question does Thailand have strict laws and so-called poor enforcement? I thought of making this video after reading a recent article from the Pattaya Mail, that is pattayamail.com, the article is titled: Does Thailand really want humble expats anymore? I'm going to quote one line from this but the whole article is insightful, I urge those who are watching this video, go check out that article for more detail. Quoting directly: "Thailand tends to be a country of strict laws and poor enforcement strategies."

I will say I probably would have said that myself at various points throughout my tenure in Thailand in specific circumstances. That said, I think this can be said for many jurisdictions around the world. There is a great line, well great, an interesting if you will line from Andrew Jackson where he was talking about Chief Justice John Marshall of the US Supreme Court in the context of the Cherokee removal case from Georgia. I am kind of intimately aware of that because I have Cherokee ancestry in my background and it's really not the greatest point in American history, I will leave it like that, but Chief Justice John Marshall of the US Supreme Court ruled against Andrew Jackson moving the Cherokee Nation and Jackson ignored him with the line "John Marshall has made his law, now let him enforce it." It's an interesting line because it shows that there is a difference between promulgation of laws, that’s legislating, and enforcing laws, the Executive Branch if you will in the American vernacular. This is a key point because people can get sort of flippant and kind of cynical about laws anywhere, or here in Thailand specifically, well "they don't enforce anything, blah, blah." There's an opposite to that. I remember listening, I remember sitting around, this was actually prior to 2014 and the major changes that occurred there, listening to the expats at the time, because at the time the big gripe amongst the expat community was "all the police are corrupt, blah, blah, blah" which I never really found to be the case but I'm not the end all be all wealth of font of knowledge, but I always thought it was an over exaggeration and folks would say "oh they don't enforce the laws around here", and I remember sitting around talking to some old guys and saying, "hey I happen to know from colleagues of mine in my office and everything, Thailand has got a heck of a lot of laws. If they really starting enforcing in earnest, it is probably not going to be something you like." Well lo and behold, some years later went by and the complaint you started hearing from the expats was about guys like "Big Joke" who were actually enforcing Immigration Law and were scrutinizing people for their Immigration requirements and people had a huge problem with that at the time as well.

The point I'm trying to make is look at the end of the day there is always going to be an inherent disconnect between the creation of laws and the enforcement thereof. But to say that Thailand has weak enforcement, I would say that isn't correct and I would say actually in the aftermath of this spate of so-called 'foreigners behaving badly' that we have seen in the first half of 2024, I think if anything you are going to see more stringent enforcement moving forward not less.