Legal Measures Concerning Protection of the Accused’s Right: A Case Study of Press Conference to Mass Media

Abstract

This thesis aims to study a legal measure concerning protection of the accused’s right  which is focused on the press conferences to mass media in order to protect the alleged offender that presumed innocent and deserve the human right and human dignity which should never been violated. When the accused was brought to a press conference after being arrested, it can be said that privacy right and human right are violated  because accused is under  justice system and the constitution of the Kingdom of Thailand. The equality of human is an important thing that police officer needs to concern. The violation by putting the accused on a press conference is a humiliation of the accused and make him unrighteous compare to the other.

The study said that currently, Thailand is now enforcing the regulation of royal Thai police title 30 “ the news publishing or interviewing or spreading pictures to the press and making public relation media B.E. 2556” as the standard of interviewing the accused to the public. This research said that the related authorities should be more active regarding such measure for example the United states of America and Federal Republic of Germany both have law as a norm to control the operation of police officer and the press. The United States of America hold the principle of Bill of Right, human dignity and ABA standard fair trial and free press as a measure or federal suggestion for the police officer which states can choose to operate. The Federal Republic of Germany has the familia measure and the legal punishment to the USA. These countries have prescribed the regulations for the police officer to operate as well as the legal punishment so as to protect the accused’s right therefore, although Thailand has the regulation of royal Thai police title 30 “ the news publishing or interviewing or spreading pictures to the press and making public relation media B.E. 2556” to be as the standard, in practice such standard is sometimes ignored because the regulation of royal Thai police title 30 is only a domestic measure of royal Thai police including there is no legal punishment either to the police officer or the press.

As mentioned, the researcher suggests that the regulation of royal Thai police title 30 “ the news publishing or interviewing or spreading pictures to the press and making public relation media B.E. 2556” should be revise enforcement to be more efficient, increase penalties in substantive law such as Criminal Procedure Code and Morality of Profession in Broadcasting code B.E. 2556.