Page 37 - รายงานผลการประเมินสถานการณ์ด้านสิทธิมนุษยชนของประเทศไทย ปี 2560

Committee on justice process came up with a plan for reforming in 10 areas of justice process. The Correction
Act, B.E. 2560 (2017) was enacted to make relevant actions consistent with the universal principles. Concerning
temporary release, a project to develop systems for risk assessment and supervision during the temporary
release, and another project on temporary release with an electronic monitoring equipment (EM), are also

helping accused or defendants to have more opportunities to be released. EM was also used with wrongdoers
in the probation system
However, certain worrisome situations were still found that the government should realize and pay
attention to, including death of persons while being detained by state agencies, justice process in the condition

that special legislation is being enforced in the case of the National Council for Peace and Order (NCPO)’s
Annoucements no. 37/2557, 38/2557 and 50/2557 which result in civilians being subjected to jurisdiction of
the military court. Later the NCPO issued Order no. 55/2559 putting civilians who committed such offence
to be subjected to the Court of Justice from 12 September 2016 onward. As a result, although this order
th
returned wrongdoings committed after 12 September 2016 to be under jurisdiction of the Court of Justice,
th
for wrongdoings before that date, civilians were still tried in military court. The ICCPR Committee noted that
a necessary measure should be used to consider the petition requesting a transfer of cases from the military
court for offences committed before 12 September 2016 of which trial was still not completed to civilian court
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and give an opportunity to civilian defendants in cases that the military court had already given a verdict to appeal.

Freedom of expression, press freedom and freedom for peaceful and unarmed
assembly

As a whole, in 2017, rights and liberties according to the Constitution were controlled by using laws
to strictly supervise, check and control. The Computer Crimes Act B.E. 2550 (2007) in particular was used
to condemn actions that were considered to be getting false information into the computer system and

condemn alleged acts of defamation. Later the government made some amendments and created correct
understandings about such actions by improving and proclaiming the Computer Crimes Act (2 Issue), B.E.
nd
2560 (2017) that did not include an offence of defamation while creating correct understanding about
how to enforce this legislation. Concerning freedom of academic expression , NCPO Order no. 3/2558
2
was used to forbid gatherings of five persons or more and strictly enforced against persons who used this
freedom. There were arguments in many incidents, insisting that this right and freedom were not used
beyond the limits of law and the Constitution also protected the freedom of academic expression. The
press freedom, which was also recognized by the Constitution, on the other hand, was restricted by many

NCPO orders and orders of the Head of NCPO, including consideration to enact Protection of Rights and
Liberties, Promotion of Ethics and Professional Standards for the Mass Media, B.E. …. Concerning freedom
of peaceful and unarmed assembly, it was found that enforcement of the Public Assembly Act, B.E. 2558
(2015) was unclear how to separate political and non-political assembly, and discretion was used by law

enforcers to restrict rather than promote and protect rights as provided by the Constitution.
2 According to international human rights instruments, freedom of academic expression is considered to be a part of the right to hold opinions and right to freedom
of expression, which include freedom to seek, receive and impart information and ideas of all kinds. These rights may be subject to certain restrictions by the
State because of reasons as stated in Article 19 (3) of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) with conditions according to international
human rights instrument.

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