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Executive Summary

Equality Principle was recognized by international human rights instruments and
foreign laws. However, “Discrimination” which comprises of two important factors i.e.

“Ground of Discrimination” such as gender, race, religious etc. and “Area of Discrimination”
such as employment, education, good and service etc., could be regarded as an obstacle
to achieve equality. However, the main problem of this research was to study whether the
existing laws of Thailand has sufficiently covered practices relating to discrimination. This

research used qualitative method and conducted comparative analysis with international
human rights laws, foreign laws including laws of the EU, South Africa, Sweden, Finland,
Canada, Australia, Singapore, Malaysia, India and the U.S. The results indicated that the
legal meaning and scope of “Discrimination” varied depending on different dimensions and

contexts. The main results of this research could be summarized as follows;

Regarding Equality Principle, the research found, by comparing foreign laws, that the
constitutional structure relating to the protection of equality ere are 3 models; the first one
classified equality as “general equality”, “specific equality” and “non-discrimination”. The

second model divided only two principles, i.e. “equality” and “non-discrimination”. The
third one only identified “non-discrimination”.

According to Thai Constitution and related Act, “Unfair Discrimination” was
stipulated leading to the question whether such term is consistent to international
humanitarian laws. The results indicated that foreign laws shared similar principle in
classifying between “distinction of treatment that is prohibited” and the “distinction of

treatment that is not prohibited”, however, the pattern of using this term can be
categorized in 4 models, (1) categorizing “Unfair Discrimination” and “Fair Discrimination”,
(2) categorizing “Unlawful Discrimination” and “Lawful Discrimination”, (3) categorizing

“Discriminatory Practice” and “Non-Discriminatory Practice”, (4) categorizing “Differential
Treatment” or “Distinction of Treatment” and “Discrimination” without using the “Fair or
Unfair” element. In this regards, Thailand can be classified in the first model. However,
constitution provided no clear definition of “Unfair” Discrimination. Thus, Court

interpretation played vital roles in providing scope and meaning of such term. In addition,
this research found, by comparing to international laws, that there is no element of “Fair or
Unfair” because the differential treatment that was not fall under the scope of
“Discrimination” was termed merely “Differential Treatment or Distinction of Treatment”.