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Improved Thai Criminal Justice Database Comes Online

Transcript of the above video:

As the title of this video suggests, we are discussing the Criminal Justice System here in the Kingdom of Thailand. There have been some recent developments and I would like it noted for those who watch these videos rather frequently, that the Criminal Justice Database that we are talking about or should I say the improvements being made thereto, are not that dissimilar from the improvements that have been made to the Immigration Systems in the Kingdom lo these past couple of years.  I find it rather interesting. I think there are some parallels and we may be able to glean some information from how the improvements to the Immigration database operated as a practical matter and this information may be able to be extrapolated and utilized when analyzing, or at least trying to forecast, how things are going to look within the Criminal Justice System in Thailand moving forward.

In a recent article from the Bangkok Post, that is bangkokpost.com, the article is entitled: CRIMES Database to Go Online October 1.  Quoting directly: "The Court prosecution and Police will soon be linked by a single online database which helps ensure accuracy and improve efficiency in legal proceedings according to the Office of the Court of Justice.  The database called CRIMES, which I presume is an acronym, is said to be operational on October 1st, said OCJ Secretary General Sarawut Benjakul. The core prosecution and police signed a Memorandum of Understanding to access the single data pool on Monday. CRIMES pools logs of legal cases currently handled by the 3 agencies." 

In prior videos on this channel, we explained in a very truncated manner and those who do have criminal issues here in the Kingdom please note I am not a Thai attorney. We have Thai attorneys here at the firm but I cannot provide specific advice regarding the Thai legal system; this is simply for informational purposes only. As noted in prior videos, and as I said they are rather truncated, but they do provide at least a brief overview as to how the Criminal Justice System works here in the Kingdom, there are various steps along the way when we see a case brought forth in the Criminal Justice System. There is an inquiry phase which utilizes the police, there is a prosecutorial phase that utilizes the prosecution and then there is the full on court proceedings sometimes colloquially referred to as a trial in which the case is brought forth and the defendant is tried and if convicted then a sentencing will be dealt with or if they are acquitted then obviously they are free to go.

So the thing to take away from this video more than anything else is that these different segments of the Criminal Justice System, the police, the prosecutors the court and judiciary itself, have been somewhat buffered from each other as a practical matter. Digitization if we have seen anything with Biometrics technology in the Immigration sphere or even the pooling of data in the Immigration sphere, the digitization of various documentation from Revenue Department when sharing with Immigration, all of this shows that when you see this type of inter-connectivity between various government agencies, especially those agencies that are tasked with dealing with law enforcement, that efficiency can have profound practical implications for those who have to deal with that system. 

So something to think about moving forward, especially for those who have had or are having dealings with the Criminal Justice System, it is probably a good idea to at least take heed of this article. Again, it is from the Bangkok Post, CRIMES Database to Go Online October 1.  Probably a good idea for those who are interested to check that out as there is a lot of information in there; I only quoted a very tiny segment of that article. Those who do have criminal offenses or are facing trial in the Kingdom, it is probably a good idea to go ahead and contact a legal professional in order to get assistance as, especially for foreigners, it can be very daunting to deal with criminal system here in the Kingdom of Thailand.