The Anutin government’s sudden dissolution of Parliament has frozen a long list of bills that would have nudged Thailand toward a more open and accountable society.
One of them is a move to curb military impunity by prosecuting soldiers in corruption and criminal cases in civilian, not military, courts.
The next government must finish this task to ensure that every person is equal under the law.
Military courts are not designed to protect the public. They protect the institution. Their judges are officers, many without legal expertise. Civilians cannot appoint their own lawyers. Evidence is filtered through military prosecutors. Court buildings sit inside restricted military compounds. And the verdicts repeatedly favour the accused when the accused wears a uniform.
No justice system can survive when one arm of the state is allowed to police itself.
The effort to send soldiers accused of corruption or crimes against civilians to be tried in civilian courts was meant to fix exactly that. It was simple: treat soldiers like any other public official.
But just before Parliament was dissolved, a majority of a House committee led by Pheu Thai politicians made a U-turn to keep these cases in military courts as before. The timing was no accident. It came as the armed forces were reasserting influence during a border conflict with Cambodia, knowing full well that public sympathy tends to drift their way during wartime.
No matter how much the public sympathises with the armed forces, the country needs the military to reform. The push to preserve military court jurisdiction cuts against this public demand. It signals that some folk still believe soldiers deserve special treatment. Worse, it tells victims that their pain ranks below the institution’s reputation.
The cost is written in case after case where justice was smothered.
Military procurement has long been plagued by corruption allegations. Yet no senior officers have ever been seriously investigated, let alone convicted.
Impunity is just as stark in cases of military violence. The six people killed at Wat Pathum Wanaram in 2010 were shot by soldiers; the Criminal Court said so. But after the 2014 coup, the case was pulled back into the military court system, and the soldiers walked free.
During that crackdown, security forces fired more than 100,000 live rounds, including over 2,000 sniper rounds. At least 94 people died. No one was held accountable.
From the massacres of Oct 14, 1973 and Oct 6, 1976 to the military crackdowns in May 1992, April 2009, and the May 2010 bloodshed, victims’ families have waited decades for justice that never arrives. They know the pattern well: when cases go to military courts, justice stops.
In the Deep South, many Muslims arrested by security forces have been seriously injured or died in custody. These cases end with no charges, no explanations, and no accountability.
Fatal hazing inside the military suffers the same problem. The institution protects its own while families lose their loved ones forever.
These failures are not incidental, but systemic. A court run by soldiers for soldiers creates outcomes shaped by loyalty, hierarchy and institutional self-defence. It erodes the rule of law. It breeds public resentment. And it hurts the military far more than any external criticism ever could.
When wrongdoers walk free, impunity blocks accountability and breeds institutional arrogance. Over time, the reputation of the armed forces falls apart because its loyalty is to its own ranks, not to justice.
Ending military court jurisdiction in criminal cases would allow the military to rebuild credibility through transparency instead of nepotism and secrecy. It would also bring the military in line with the constitutional principle that every person is equal before the law.
This is why the reform cannot be allowed to die with Parliament’s dissolution. The next government will face the same responsibility, pressure and public demand.
The border conflict may have boosted the military’s standing, but it has not changed public expectations. Reform is not optional, but overdue.
Political alliances will shift. Governments will come and go. But the need to send soldiers to civilian courts will remain, because it is crucial to stop decades of damage to the justice system, and the military’s own legitimacy.
Thailand cannot keep a justice system where truth is negotiable, access is unequal, and court verdicts depend on who you are, not what you did. A nation is measured not by the power of its institutions, but by how willingly those institutions submit to the law.
Provided by SyndiGate Media Inc. (Syndigate.info).
