Content Structure Synthesis of the Lak Chai Handbook of Judgement Principles for the Victory of Justice

Abstract

Lak Chai is a book about the judicial method of the Ayutthaya Kingdom, which contains content to teach the principles of judgment to judges. Although many manuscripts of the Lak Chai have been discovered today, none of them has been studied in its content structure, both juridically and functionally. The researcher therefore aims to analyze and synthesize the structure of such contents from the comparison of 41 Lak chai editions. The result of synthesizing content structure of this research gives 3 kinds of structures, that are (1) original content structure consists of 5 parts: (1.1) juridical philosophy of judge, (1.2) case files of accusation and defense, (1.3) trick passages of judgement, (1.4) poetry of Lak Chai, (1.5) royal decrees; (2) juridical content structure consists of 3 parts: (2.1) “Thammasat” (duties of the judges and justice process), (2.2) “Lak Chai” (ethics of the judge and juridical examination) and (2.3) royal decrees (laws that were issued by Kings); (3) functional content structure consists of 5 parts: (3.1) basic principles of justice process, (3.2) case files for exercising case consideration, (3.3) applied principles of trick passages of case consideration, (4) memorization of the principles, and (5) appendix of the royal decrees. “Lak Chai” is therefore a judge's educational handbook for learning principles, methods, and thicks/tips on judicial procedures and fair judgments.