Transcript of the above video:

As the title of this video suggests, we are discussing the lack of jury trials in Thailand. I thought of making this video after reading a recent article from the Pattaya Mail, that is pattayamail.com, the article is titled: Pattaya City Expats Club: Staying Safe Legally in Thailand in 2023. A lot of great information in there, I urge those who are watching this video go check that out but I am going to quote a small excerpt. Quoting directly: "There are no jury trials in Thailand eliminating the adversarial aspects during Court proceedings." 

First off, I would say I think you could probably parse out the adversarial aspect of the Common Law tradition of adjudication from jury trials per se. What I mean there is just because you have a jury trial in my mind doesn't necessarily mean the proceeding has to be adversarial. It's possible I guess in some hypothetical sense. You could have a jury trial proceeding where you would have an inquisitorial type of approach, much akin to the way the Thai Legal System works; the Judicial System operates on an inquisitorial system not so much an adversarial system, so I could see an inquisitorial system utilizing a jury is basically what I am saying.

But that's not the case here. In Thailand there are no juries, they are not trial by juries. There tend to be bench trials oftentimes with one or more Judges depending on the circumstances and depending on the circumstances in the case. It's a very different system, it's just quite a different system. I have done a number of videos on this in the past where I compare the Thai Civil Law System to the Common Law System. I really quite enjoy Comparative Law, I know people think I am a big nerd, but whatever, I like it and its just interesting the way the two systems will work. Another thing that's interesting in Thai trials, Thai Legal proceedings, you may not have the same Judge throughout the whole proceeding. They may change Judges multiple times through a given proceeding. It's a very different way of administering justice. But long story short, yeah there are no jury trials in Thailand.

What are my thoughts on that? I definitely come from a Common Law System; I'm very respectful of the right to trial by jury. It is one of the pillars of the Common Law tradition in both the Commonwealth countries, the so-called Anglo-sphere, Ireland, as well as the United States but is that necessarily the right thing for Thailand? I really don't think so. Their system here tends to work for them, for Thailand, it works for Thailand. And, I think it's interesting because if you pick and choose certain pieces of different legal systems, I mean it's sort of like saying I want to put a big block Hemi engine into a snowmobile. It's just a different component for a different machine; it's not necessarily interoperable so the notion of you know "Well, what would happen if Thailand changed to jury trial?" Well it would totally upend the system as it exists now. I mean the procedures and protocols associated with the Thai Justice System would be totally, totally different. So on the one hand it's kind of a fun thought experiment, on the other hand the practical implication is almost to the point of absurdity so it's one of those things that I don't really preoccupy myself with too much, but it is interesting to look at the different systems and quite honestly Thailand's system works for Thailand. The jury trial system works for the Common Law traditional countries. Maybe that is just sort of the way it is.