Thai court orders end to royal insult law reform bid
BANGKOK: Thailand’s progressive Move Forward Party, which won most seats at the last election, was Wednesday ordered to stop campaigning to reform the kingdom’s tough royal defamation laws, as a top court ruled the policy was unlawful. MFP upended Thailand’s political order by coming first in the general election last May, but its promises to reform the military, business monopolies and lese-majeste laws were opposed by the kingdom’s powerful conservative elite.
The Constitutional Court on Wednesday ruled that the party’s campaign pledge to reform Thailand’s strict laws protecting King Maha Vajiralongkorn amounted to an attempt to “overthrow the monarchy”. The unanimous ruling by nine judges could pave the way for MFP to be dissolved under laws governing political parties.
The court said MFP’s attempts to amend the royal defamation law showed “an intent to separate the monarchy from the Thai nation, which is significantly dangerous to the security of the state”. “There are prohibitions on the exercise of rights and freedoms that affect the country’s security and peace, order of the state, and good morals,” it said.
The court ordered MFP and its former leader Pita Limjaroenrat to immediately stop all attempts to amend or abolish the lese-majeste laws, whether through speaking, writing or other means. Pita — who stepped down as party leader last year and now acts as a senior adviser — said the ruling was a “lost opportunity” for parliament to discuss an important issue. And he insisted the party had no wish to overthrow the Thai constitutional order.
“We refuse that the attempt was an alibi nor was it an attempt to cause any deterioration of the monarchy and did not have any intention of separating the monarchy with the national security,” he said in English after the verdict. MFP’s forerunner, the Future Forward Party, was dissolved by court order in 2020 and Pita said he was aware the same fate could await the party now. “We are preparing accordingly,” he told reporters.
After MFP’s election success last year, Pita was blocked from becoming prime minister by conservative forces in the Senate, ostensibly because of the threat he and the party posed to the monarchy. Last week, he returned to parliament after the Constitutional Court cleared him of breaching election laws in a separate case that could have seen him barred from politics.
Tough sentences
The lese-majeste law is intended to protect the king — a revered, semi-divine figure in Thai society — from insult, and those breaking it can face up to 15 years in jail per offence. But critics say the legislation has been interpreted so broadly in recent years as to shield the royal family from any kind of criticism or mockery.
This month, a man was sentenced to 50 years in prison for a series of Facebook posts deemed insulting to the monarchy. And in March last year, a man was jailed for two years for selling satirical calendars featuring rubber ducks that a court said defamed the king.
The yellow bath toys were an unexpected symbol of mass youth-led street protests that shook Bangkok in 2020. Reform of the lese-majeste law, known in Thailand as 112 after the relevant section of the criminal code, was a major theme of the demonstrations, which featured unprecedented public criticism of the royal family.—AFP