The Factors in the Ineffectiveness of Law and Criminal Justice for the Rich

Abstract

In principal, Law and Criminal Justice are expected to be fair and equal for everybody. The state cannot and do not have the right to allow a privilege over the law to anyone. In practice, it has been repeatedly found that our criminal justice is weak and slow for the rich who earn advantages over the others and are easily able to avoid the enforcement. In this article, the author analyses our criminal justice and law enforcement when they come to take action against the rich through several case studies in the Thai society. The case studies reveal that several factors contribute to the poor justice and ineffective law enforcement against the rich including corruption of the law enforcement official, the privilege social or political power of the rich over the organization and officials, the patronage culture, and defects of evidence collection and trials process. Earning these advantages and privileges for the rich causes the justice to be unreliable and distrust. In addressing these problems, recommendations from this article are: mutuality between state and society; more proactive role of the judge; the participation of the prosecutor in the investigation and evidence collection process; the proposal for independent law enforcement agent; and most importantly the role of the public and media scrutiny to the criminal case against the rich.