Transcript of the above video: 

A couple of things going on here. First of all, just as a preface, I thought it was rather interesting this story came up that Julian Assange of WikiLeaks sort of fame if you will or notoriety depending on the circles you sort of run in, has been apparently released, sent to Saipan apparently to formalize and finalize a plea deal under the Federal Jurisdiction of the US District Courts it is my understanding but apparently he came through Bangkok. We are going to throw up some footage here and interestingly apparently he transitioned, transferred, refueled whatever, came through here in Bangkok, Thailand, so I thought that was kind of newsworthy. That is a pretty major piece of Immigration News. Somebody who has been locked up for years now and now been released and looks like is heading home; sort of Thailand played a tiny little part I guess in being a lily pad on his return journey back. So that was kind of interesting. 

That said, more to direct local news. I thought of making this video after reading a recent article from the Bangkok Post, bangkokpost.com, the article is titled: Commission set to meet today to decide the fate of 'Big Joke'. So that's Police General Surachate "Big Joke" Hakparn. We have been covering him for years. Ever since he headed up Thai Immigration his career has been quite colourful and it has been rather interesting watching him and the progression of his career over time. 

As those who have been watching this channel may be aware, he was suspended sometime back. He has challenged the legitimacy of the procedure of the suspension and that appears to be coming to a head. Quoting directly: "A Police Commission meeting will be held today to discuss the fate of Deputy Police Chief Police General Surachate Hakparn, Prime Minister Srettha Thavisin said on Tuesday. The Commission will meet to consider whether the Royal Thai Police's order to dismiss Police General Surachate, aka "Big Joke" was in breach of the law. Quote: "In the meeting, we need to listen to the Disciplinary and Police Virtue Protection Committee {who are looking into Police General Surachate's alleged offenses}," said Mr Srettha. Meanwhile Police General Surachate reportedly filed a defamation lawsuit with the Bangkok South Criminal Court against a Police General who is a member of the Police Commission and a legal expert appointed by the premier." Quoting further: "Police General Surachate asked the Court to investigate the conflict within the Royal Thai Police concerning the defamation case that already implicated him in online gambling offenses right after the Court issued an arrest warrant against him. He said the warrant was issued against him for his failure to respond to a summons, not because he committed a crime." Yeah again, this gets into really deep, rather fine points of Thai Procedural Law especially as it pertains internally to the Royal Thai Police Department. So a lot of this is sort of almost what we might call in an American context, Internal Affairs procedure, due process within a government agency, that's what you're dealing with here. Quoting further: "The legal expert in question is a member of the investigation committee, which is responsible for reporting to the premier, not making decisions on the case instead of the Court." Again this is kind of one of those examples just generally when you are talking about legal or procedural issues, bureaucracy, administrative law issues as we call it in the US Common Law vernacular. On the one hand it seems like again, very semantic, trying to sort of separate as they say "pepper from fly excrement", trying to decipher fine points, but it's not that fine a point. Again the notion that for example "the legal expert in question is a member of the investigation committee which is responsible for reporting to the premier not making decisions on the case instead of the Court." Again not sure if that allegation is true, but that is a major difference. If it was the premier's job to go ahead and initiate a suspension rather than other Police, that's a big difference in terms of procedural protocol. So again, not small issues but they hinge upon seemingly discreet issues of Thai Procedural and internal Procedural Law and rules within the bureaucracy of the Royal Thai Police. That said, again "Big Joke's" fate remains uncertain. We'll try to keep you updated as best we can moving forward on this issue as it evolves.