More perjury suits filed against Thaksin despite Bangkok courts bizarre ruling on statute of limitations

Apparently in 2006 the Thai judicial system is still trying to iron out how it intends to apply a basic legal concept like statute of limitations. I can't imagine that there isn't some case history on this, though Thai courts don't seem overly concerned with judicial precedence or consistency of process. We saw this in the first landmark Shinawatra tax case where a massive share transfer to the Prime Minister's son was ruled exempt from personal income tax. This contradicted many other cases where income tax liability was held to attach to such transfers, as it would in any system in the world. You can't gift a billion dollars to your son tax free.

Again, contrary to international standard, the Criminal Court did not supply any legal support for its strange and results-oriented interpretation of 'tolling periods' in the preceding Monson perjury case against Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra. At the minimum this shows a real lack of transparency in the Thai judicial system, one of the tests of a legitimate democracy.

New perjury charge

JUSTICE :US businessman William Monson is expected to file another perjury charge in the South Bangkok Criminal Court against caretaker Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra today after the court earlier rejected a similar charge due to the statute of limitations having lapsed.

Paramet Sutabutr, Mr Monson's lawyer, said the charge would be lodged today alleging Mr Thaksin lied twice during a trial on Nov 12, 1996 and again on Jan 12, 1997.

Mr Monson took Mr Thaksin to court over his alleged violation of an agreement to jointly operate a cable television enterprise.

He claimed Mr Thaksin lied to a civil court by calling him an employee and alleging Mr Monson's company had stolen some equipment from their business deal.

On Sept 11, the Criminal Court dismissed the case in which Mr Monson accused Mr Thaksin of lying to court during a trial on July 22, 1996.

The court said the statute of limitations for that date had expired. Mr Monson is lodging an appeal, saying the statute of limitations in the case should be calculated differently.

Now he is filing the charge based on Mr Thaksin's Nov 12 and Jan 12 testimony to ensure the statute of limitations won't yet have expired.