On 25 January 2019, the Cabinet approved in principle a draft Timeframe for Judicial Procedures Act (“Draft Act”) proposed by the Office of the National Economic and Social Development Board.
The Draft Act shall be passed to the Office of the Council of State for consideration and revision before proposing to the National Legislative Assembly for further consideration and approval and publishing the same in the Royal Gazette prior to become the law.
The Draft Act states duties of any judicial authority in Thailand in regard to its judicial procedures as details below:
- The duty to indicate timeframe for any judicial procedure.
- The duty to create a system which the relevant persons on such certain procedures are able to follow up and check status of their matter. Such system must be easy to access and under user-friendly means.
- The duty to arrange responsible persons for particular matters in order to receive a complaint from the relevant persons of the matter in case that the procedures for such matters are delay. Once the complaint has been received, such responsible persons have the obligation to inspect and inform in regard to such investigation to the relevant persons and report the same to the superior.
- The duty to collect statistical record in regard to duration of each judicial procedure and compare the same with the indicate timeline and publish such statistic data to the public.
- The duty to indicate criteria for investigation/inspection of each judicial procedure whether it is in line with the Constitutional Law, laws, rule of law and country good governance. If not, the judicial authority has its duty to improve the same.
In conclusion, the purpose of this Draft Act is to make the judicial procedures more efficient, transparent and accessible by the relevant person and public which currently it is very difficult to be reached to by not only the public but also the relevant persons of such procedures.
Author: Panisa Suwanmatajarn and Onnicha Khongthon