Transcript of the above video: 

As the title of this video suggests, we are discussing plea bargaining in the context of Criminal Law here in Thailand. I'm going to use this as a teaching moment to explain sort of, there are differences between the American Common Law and I come at this from the American Common Law tradition which does come from UK, if you go back far enough, but the tradition itself is an American jurisprudential tradition.

That being said, there are differences between the Thai, what is called the Civil Law, they say they utilize the Civil Law System, I would say Thailand's Legal System is quite unique because I've noticed after talking to Civil Law folks - folks with a background in Civil Law - I've noticed them say "hey you know at the end of the day, the Civil Law is not exactly the best description sometimes for exactly how the Thai System works." Long story short, it is best to look at the Thai System as being unique in terms of jurisprudence when it comes to the issue of comparing it to the American system. 

But long story short, one of the big differences between the Criminal Law System here in Thailand and the Criminal Law System in the United States, is in the United States you can utilize what's called Plea Bargaining wherein you can get with a prosecutor and come up with a deal whereby you plead to lesser charges than were initially brought against you. Here in Thailand that may not necessarily be possible. In fact, generally speaking as a matter of course, it is not possible. You can deal with the prosecutor, you can deal with the, in the case of an injured party or something of this nature, you can deal with them and even the Judge and try to figure out some form of for example restitution which you think may result in a lesser sentence, but as far as this notion of sort of locking in some sort of plea bargain, it doesn't quite work that way here in the Kingdom of Thailand.