(SEAPA/IFEX) – The celebrated trial of a media reformer and a local newspaper for criminal defamation, filed by Thailand’s largest telecommunications operator, took a dramatic turn on 14 February 2006, a month before the court was to issue its ruling, when the company, Shin Corp., indicated it wanted to drop the charges. Supinya Klangnarong, secretary […]
(SEAPA/IFEX) – The celebrated trial of a media reformer and a local newspaper for criminal defamation, filed by Thailand’s largest telecommunications operator, took a dramatic turn on 14 February 2006, a month before the court was to issue its ruling, when the company, Shin Corp., indicated it wanted to drop the charges.
Supinya Klangnarong, secretary general of Campaign for Popular Media Reform, the principal defendant in the lawsuit, says Shin Corp.’s lawyer, Somporn Pongsuwan, approached her on 14 February asking her to agree to an out-of-court settlement of the case.
Supinya says she has not decided whether to accept the offer. Earlier she had indicated that she would fight until the end and was ready for a long battle against Shin Corp., which was founded by the family of Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra. She had said that, should the court find her guilty, she would ask for a judicial review of her case by the Supreme Court.
Shin Corp. filed criminal and civil defamation suits in 2004, accusing Supinya and the “Thai Post” newspaper of ruining its reputation after she said in a July 2003 article that the company had benefited handsomely from government policy, when its profits rose sharply after Thaksin became prime minister. The company later filed a separate civil lawsuit demanding that Supinya pay damages of 400 million baht (approx. US$10 million).
The trial on the criminal charges began in July 2005 and the court is scheduled to issue its verdict on 15 March.
Critics were quick to say that Shin Corp.’s decision to withdraw the lawsuits was an emergency solution, offered in order to save the prime minister from the potentially undesirable political repercussions of the court decision, whatever its outcome.
The company had wanted to pursue the court battle in the hope that legal action would stop further criticism over the overlapping interests between the company and the Thaksin government. However, recent developments arising from the sale of Shin Corp. shares by Thaksin’s children and his wife’s family had put the spotlight on the very issue of conflict of interest.
The English-language Bangkok newspaper “The Nation”, in its 12 February commentary, said the company, and the prime minister in particular, may no longer wish to see the verdict issued, since a ruling in Shin Corp.’s favour would likely feed the growing public resentment of Thaksin over his family’s controversial sale of its shares in Shin Corp. to Temasek Holdings, the Singaporean government investment fund.
The Shinawatra family’s 73-billion-baht (approx. US$1.858 billion) share sale, dubbed as the largest single deal on the Thai stock market, sparked a public outcry and calls for close scrutiny of possible irregularities and abuse of power after Thaksin himself declared that his family need not pay capital gains tax on the sale.
Questions of conflict of interest have haunted the prime minister since the start of his tenure in 2001 and they may bring him down in the second year of his second term.
For the free expression community and Supinya, the withdrawal of the lawsuit will mean depriving the nation of the opportunity to learn from this historic legal battle.
The trial has been seen as a test case to demonstrate the maturity of the courts’ understanding of free expression rights in the country.
SEAPA believes that it is in the public interest to see the trial come to a proper conclusion as a court verdict will be a crucial milestone in the establishment of jurisprudence for future application and interpretation of defamation laws in Thailand vis-à-vis the constitutional rights to free expression.
