Thaksin’s children insist that they don’t want a blanket amnesty for their dad, just new trial and chance for appeals, alleging that the Assets Scrutiny Committee (ASC) was biased against their father. I fully agree that all defendants are entitled to an impartial trial, but how to implement Oak/Thaksin’s idea? For starters: (a) Any judge must have a profound dislike for crime and criminals in general, but be neutral as to the guilt or innocence of a given individual. How to ensure that the new set of judges will not be partial to any party, including Thaksin? (b) To be fair, we shouldn’t limit the retrial to just what the defendant doesn’t agree with. For example, let’s retry an earlier case, where it’s unchallenged that Thaksin parked many billions in assets with his maid, driver, etc. and a plurality of judges found him guilty of tax evasion – yet Thaksin walked free. ( c ) It was the court, not the ASC, that sentenced Thaksin to jail, so Oak/Thaksin is, in effect, saying that the whole system is biased. I note that Opposition leader Abhisit and Democrat deputy leader Suthep Thaugsuban were charged with murder just one day before the blanket amnesty bill – which would have pardoned them – went to Parliament, so the system may now be biased the other way. How does Thaksin propose to create a neutral judicial system? (d) Since the Supreme Court, not a lower one, sentenced Thaksin, who would Oak want any appeals to be directed to? Yes, trials must be without fear or favor, but how to improve upon what we have?
Posted on: Thu, 31 Oct 2013 11:18:03 +0000