Criminal law in Thailand Part 4: What happens when you're arrested

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Criminal law in Thailand Part 4: What happens when you're arrested
By James Finch and Nilobon Tangprasit
Published: 25/04/2010 at 12:00 AM
Bangkok Post: Newspaper section: Spectrum

Let's talk now about your rights if you are arrested. As mentioned earlier, many police speak only the Thai language. Once you are under arrest and brought to the inquiry office, the police station, for example, an interpreter competent in your native language must be provided for you.

This requirement of a translator is at state expense and applies for all stages of the proceeding, for example, preliminary hearings, trial and sentencing. If you do not get an interpreter or you want to use one you designate and compensate yourself, you have a right to do so.

The same rights apply to the case of an arrestee who is hearing or speech impaired. You must be provided with someone who can sign, so that you understand and can express yourself at every stage of the proceedings.

The rules about interpreters, incidentally, also apply to witnesses to crimes. So if you are brought to a police station to give a statement about a crime that somebody else has allegedly committed, an interpreter must be appointed for you. There are other items that have to be explained to you by the police if you are arrested:

- You must receive an explanation of the reason for the arrest and a copy of the arrest warrant, if there is one;

- you can make a statement, but that statement can in the future be used against you in evidence at a trial;

- you have the right to call and have a lawyer present, meet with the lawyer in private and have the lawyer attend hearings in the proceeding with you;

- you can call a relative, friend or other party, and the police have a duty to let you use a telephone to do so. You can also request that the police contact these parties on your behalf;

- you have a right to medical treatment if you need it.

But when do you have to have these rights explained to you? The arresting police officer has a fair amount of discretion as to this. For example, let's say you're arrested in a nightclub, and it's crowded and difficult to hear. The police in such a case would clearly have the authority to arrest you and take you outside. At the first possible moment, however, you must be told 1) the reason for the arrest and shown a copy of the warrant, if there is one, and 2) that you can make a statement, but if you do, it may be used against you in evidence at trial. If you ask that someone be notified of the arrest, the arresting officer must, under reasonable circumstances, do so.

When you arrive at the police station all of the rights in the list above must be explained to you, even though some of them have already been told to you by the arresting officer. How much delay by the arresting officer is permissible in telling you your initial rights as discussed above? The delay must be reasonable. Certainly, in our example, if you're taken outside the nightclub and immediately told these rights, this would be adequate.

But what if you're then left locked in a police car for a few hours? Or taken somewhere, left alone in a locked room and no one explains anything to you? In these cases, the police would have the obligation to explain the above rights to you, before you were locked somewhere.

Let's say, alternatively, that inside the nightclub, when the police tried to make the arrest, you put up a fight and tried to hit one of the arresting officers with a beer bottle? The police would have the right to take the action they consider necessary to effect the arrest. This might delay their obligation to let you know about your rights. For example, if they felt you would fight until they had you in a secure location, say, at the police station, they could wait until then. We'll continue our discussion of your rights when arrested next time.

James Finch of Chavalit Finch and
Partners (finch@chavalitfinchlaw.com)
and Nilobon Tangprasit of Siam City Law Offices Ltd
(nilobon@siamcitylaw.com).
Researcher: Chanakarn Boonyasith.
For more information
visit http://www.chavalitfinchlaw.com.
 
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