The Courts of Justice are facing the quandary of a new legal tactic by defence lawyers.  Known informally as the ‘Democrat Defence’, this strategy, it is feared, may lead to an unacceptably large proportion of not guilty verdicts in criminal cases.

In the ‘Democrat Defence’, criminal cases are presented in a way that absolves the direct perpetrator of any responsibility for his or her actions.  This is instead placed on some other party, often the victim. 

The Democrat Defence came into prominence after a picture was widely published in domestic and international media of a Democrat MP with his hand round the throat of a parliamentary police officer during the joint Senate-House debate on amending the Constitution.  While to the uninformed observer, this may appear prima facie to constitute common assault and the obstruction of a police officer in the pursuit of his duty, the opposition Democrat Party, supported by such impeccably neutral publications as the Bangkok Post, claims that the MP is guilty of no offe

The Bangkok Post editorial ‘Somsak bias led to scuffle’ clearly puts responsibility on the President of Parliament, Somsak Kiatsuranant, who never raised his mitts at all.  While briefly noting late in the editorial that the ‘unruly scenes in parliament on Tuesday were shameful, and all opposing camps should be held accountable for their roles in it’, the editorial leaves no doubt who was the guilty party.

Speakr Somsak, who was chairing the fractious debate, had called for a vote while 57 Democrat MPs and non-partisan Democrat-supporting Senators were still waiting to repeat the same argument that appointing senators is more democratic than electing them.  The subsequent resort to physical violence was therefore nothing more than a natural, spontaneous and innocent response to this intolerable provocation.

The Democrat MP’s hand was placed round a policeman’s throat not as the result of a wilful determination to physically resain the police officer.  It was a purely reflexive action over which no Democrat MP could have any conscious control.  The real culprit was the person who deliberately engineered the situation.  A simple case of cause and effect.

Not that it is necessarily Somsak who is the ultimate villain, since every right-thinking person knows that nothing happens to thwart the Democrats that is not choreographed in detail by He Who Must Not Be Named.

The personal account of the violence in 2009-2010 by Democrat leader Abhisit Vejjajiva, marketed in English under the title ‘The Simple Truth’, invokes the same principle.  The deaths of unarmed people inside the declared sanctuary of Wat Pathumwanaram were not caused by military-issue bullets fired from the guns of soldiers photographed shooting from the Skytrain tracks overlooking the temple.  Nor were they caused by the military and civilian authorities, Abhisit included, who gave orders to the soldiers to use live ammunition that day.

This is a complete misunderstanding of the simple truth, which is that the victims (be they protestors, medical professionals or journalists) caused their own deaths and injuries by being present at protests that wilfully included in their midst armed terrorists that the court inquest could not find.  If the protest had not required removal, then there would have been no bloodshed, which was the natural, blameless response to a situation the protestors themselves had caused.

Now something like the Democrat Defence has often been used by defendants in rape cases.  ‘She wanted it, yeronner, even when she was saying no.’  ‘Dressed like that, she was just asking to be raped.’  And sometimes this has been successful.

But it now being used with such regularity that prosecutors are beginning to wonder how they will ever win another case. 

One thief was accused of snatching the bag of a Middle Eastern tourist in a tuk-tuk stuck at Chidlom lights, after being apprehended while trying to pawn the smartphone it contained.  He escaped punishment by claiming that the disparity of wealth between the average Arab and your common or garden Bangkok motorcyclist is so blatant that his action was merely an honest, nay, praiseworthy attempt to redress this economic imbalance.  It was the tourist’s fault for being so wealthy.

A motorist on a charge of running a red light and knocking down a pedestrian crossing the road successfully argued the pedestrian should have known that he was in a hurry, that his hypertension would have suffered during the 5-minute wait for the next green light, and that in normal Bangkok traffic, at least 3 cars keep going after the light has turned red.  By trying to cross the road, the pedestrian was running a well-known and foreseeable risk and could only blame himself for the consequences.

Desperate to prevent mass acquittals in cases where the Democrat Defence is used, the courts are considering a number of options.  It was decided early on that using common sense would be incompatible with the normal administration of justice in Thailand.

The most popular idea, which is likely to come into effect soon, is to require anyone mounting a Democrat Defence to prove that they are in fact Democrats by producing a party membership card.  Apart from the relief it will afford the courts, this measure will also have the salutary effect of strengthening the political party system.  At least that part of it that the courts want to see strengthened.

About author:  Bangkokians with long memories may remember his irreverent column in The Nation in the 1980's. During his period of enforced silence since then, he was variously reported as participating in a 999-day meditation retreat in a hill-top monastery in Mae Hong Son (he gave up after 998 days), as the Special Rapporteur for Satire of the UN High Commission for Human Rights, and as understudy for the male lead in the long-running ‘Pussies -not the Musical' at the Neasden International Palladium (formerly Park Lane Empire).

And if you believe any of those stories, you might believe his columns.