Transcript of the above video: 

As the title of this video suggests, we are discussing, well Thailand's jurisprudence. I thought of making this video after reading a recent article from the Thai Examiner, that is thaiexaminer.com, the article is titled: New Zealand Day brothers have landed back home in their own country after 4 months in detention. I did another video on this. Again four months in detention for assaulting a Police Officer, that seems pretty lenient by any stretch of my imagination at least, but I am not going to really get into the thrust of that in this video. This video is going a slightly different direction. Quoting directly: "Subsequently the pair was arrested by the Phuket Police. They were charged with obstruction, robbery and the assault of a Police Officer. In addition, they appeared before the Phuket Provincial Court on criminal charges. They were refused bail and placed on remand pending their trial. News of their release has come as a surprise to the public. Certainly there has yet to be any official communication on the circumstances involved. Thailand's jurisprudence is somewhat different from that of Western countries. In short, cases, including criminal matters, can be negotiated between aggrieved parties. However, it is not clear how this matter was resolved legally. Previously, the video of the incident drew mixed reactions. The circumstances involved in the interaction between the men and the policeman were not fully explained." 

Yeah so going back, "in short, cases including criminal matters can be negotiated between aggrieved parties." As we have discussed in other videos, there are private criminal actions here in Thailand, so sometimes the State Prosecutor may take up a case, sometimes they may not. Again one note, one aspect of this is restitution has resonance in the Thai legal system in such a way that it does not have the same resonance at least from the American Common Law tradition. 

Now that being said, as I have discussed in prior videos but I haven't discussed in some time, there is no such thing as a plea deal, equivalent to plea deals in the American system. I think this comes somewhat from the lack of equity in the Legal System here in Thailand. Again don't want to go too deep into this, but equity sort of got intertwined with legal reasoning, sort of Equity Law, Law of Equity and then legal reasoning or legal power, sort of got intertwined in the Common Law System. And that comes about as basically from the time Henry VIII left the Catholic Church, you have these things called the Courts, the Ecclesiastical Courts, they became what were called the Courts of the King's Conscience. Those then got intertwined with the Law Courts as time went on. Then that tradition was inherited by the American legal tradition. And so we see plea dealings in the context of American jurisprudence is a common thing and it comes about from this sort of intermixture between law and equity or fairness if you will. None of that exists in the Thai system. So again, plea deals are not a thing, a plea bargain if you will is not a thing strictly speaking in Thailand. 

However, they do have other mechanisms: things like restitution sometimes maybe an effective means of mitigating sentencing etc. - that may have occurred here. I would have to imagine we would be talking about really major substantial negotiations would have to be undergone and again I don't know the full posture of this case; I don't know how it was finally and fully adjudicated if it was at all. So again, these are data points we don't really have with respect to exactly how this played out. That said, we will certainly keep you updated on this channel as the situation evolves.