This ruling shows that we have discrepancies in Thailand laws.

A few weeks ago, we read in newspapers: the request for tender to provide 3G mobile phone services was ruled illegal by a high court. This ruling shows that we have discrepancies in Thailand laws.  We can see that discrepancies [1] make enforcing laws difficult, create impression of injustice in the public mind [2], increase costs in complying with the laws, and so on.
 
How many discrepancies are there? What laws are in conflicts with other laws? What laws are unconstitutional? We do not know. We only find out when the problems are put to a court, some times, long after the laws have been passed by Parliament. Should laws be checked to insure there are no discrepancies --before-- they become laws. Yes, definitely. But laws makers do not have the skills required and the main reason for passing the laws is often to make it either legal or illegal to do something [3, 4]. So, discrepancies can be legally created and accumulated. Then, more police, lawyers and judges are needed to make the laws work. And our lives become more complex while more 'bad' laws makers making more laws.

What about the Office of the Council of State (สำนักงานคณะกรรมการกฤษฏีกา) whose motto is "มุ่งมั่น สร้างสรรค์กฏหมายไทยให้มีคุณภาพ"? What is their function in the laws making process? It seems that the office exists to facilitate and to support laws makers (elected representatives or Members of Parliament): จัดทำร่างกฎหมายตามที่คณะรัฐมนตรีหรือนายกรัฐมนตรีมอบหมาย และพิจารณาเสนอความเห็นให้มีการแก้ไข ปรับปรุงหรือยกเลิกกฎหมาย.
 
How do we fix this problem then? We can elect only 'good' laws makers and keep asking them to pass only good new laws. But, what do we do with discrepancies in 'old laws'? We cannot abolish all old laws and start every law anew. In principle, we have a constitution -- a basis to make all other laws. We can check if each law agrees with the constitution. The chances of laws agreeing with 'the' constition, agree with other laws are very high but not absolute. But, we cannot make our laws agree with our constitution if we keep changing our constitution. We know we cannot stand still if the ground that we stand on is moving.
 
So, we have to look for tools to search for and remove discrepancies in laws quickly. We can engage our best legal minds and legal experts in reading the letters of laws and rulings in court cases. This is what we are doing now. The task is enormous and slow and we have little success so far. Can we automate some tasks? With computers, we should be able to index [5, 6] 'words' of laws, search for and compare clauses and sections of laws, and report not onlt the text of laws but also the relationships between laws. To our legal experts, we should be able to service them with causal analyses, exception analyses, and summary of court precedences. Using the Internet, we can distribute tasks and facilitate collaboration of the legal experts and the public.
 
Why do we not do this now? We need (to train) people with specific skills. We need (allocation of sufficient) funding. We need commitment to 'good laws'. We already have government departments and ministries administering national and public affairs to ensuring compliance with the laws they operate under. Should they not be the best keepers of laws? Well, History shows that we need to audit to ensure quality of law enforcement and compliance. So, we have independent keepers who keep eyes on keepers who keep eyes on... compliance to laws.  


<Note 1> The case of คุณหญิงจารุวรรณ เมณฑกา acting in her position after her legal retirement date has passed is another example: "...ปกครองกลางมีคำสั่งให้ทุเลาการบังคับตามคำสั่ง สำนักงานการตรวจเงินแผ่นดิน (สตง.) ที่184/2553 ของคุณหญิงจารุวรรณ เมณฑกา อดีตผู้ว่าการตรวจเงินแผ่นดิน ผู้ถูกฟ้องคดี เรื่องยกเลิกคำสั่งแต่งตั้งรองผู้ว่าการตรวจเงินแผ่นดิน (นายพิศิษฐ์ ลีลาวชิโรภาส) ให้รักษาราชการแทนผู้ว่าการฯ ลงวันที่ 18 สิงหาคม 2553 ไว้เป็นการชั่วคราวก่อนการพิพากษา จนกว่าศาลจะมีคำพิพากษา หรือมีคำสั่งเป็นอย่างอื่น ซึ่งทำให้ นายพิศิษฐ์ มีอำนาจในการรักษาราชการแทนผู้ว่าการตรวจเงินแผ่นดินต่อไป..." (Naewna.com 16 Oct 2010)     
 
<Note 2> Currently, landfills (to raise ground level over flood level before building) 'appear' uncontrolled. Neighboring lands are affected (flooded by rising flood level) and unable to claim for compensation. So, landfill control law is a must. This law should allow landfill only when its environmental effects are negligible. In another word landfill must be applied for and approved by local authorities not to increase local flood level nor to upset any environmental balance. In practice, this law says a water reservoir and/or a water channel must be created to counter effects of the proposed landfill and the wildlife (fauna and flora) habitats are not destroyed.
 
This law does have wider implications in conservation, land and water management -- nationally. Experiences with floods and rescues management this year (2553 BE) show a case of urgent and strong need to manage landfilling in a fair-and-just way for much wider concerns -- not just locally but along the waterflow corridors downstream.  
 
<Note 3> It is very common to see, in some countries, laws to legalize the taking of power by unconstitutional means are passed after the successful coups.
 
<Note 4> Trading and using opium are illegal throughout the world. But using opium in medical treatment is legal in many countries. Opium-like substances are now prescribed legally by doctors for treatment of chronic pains. The prescriptions are legalised and subsidised by taxpayers (via governments). Many drug companies profit from opium.
 
<Note 5> There are already many (Internet) search engines capable of indexing webpages in Thai text (in various encodings: ISO-8859-11, TIS-620, UTF-8, etc). With appropriate structuring (eg. one section per webpage in a document tree per law), Thai laws can be made accessible from one website on the Internet. Some filtering and reporting facilities can be provided. This website of Thai laws would then provide one common access point for all laws and court cases (interpretation) and commentaries. (www.krisdika.go.th already provides many useful facilities.)
 
There are websites that contain some Thai laws in portable document format (.pdf) which is not search engine friendly: for examples  
สำนักกฎหมาย สำนักงานกระทรวงมหาดไทย < http://210.246.86.45/e-meeting/100652_5/htm/law.htm >
สำนักงานคณะกรรมการกฤษฎีกา และส่วนงานราชกิจจานุเบกษา offer  
    พระราชบัญญัติ/พระราชกำหนด, ห้องสมุดกฎหมาย, ประมวลกฎหมาย (available in html, pdf and some in tif) eg.  
        ประมวลกฎหมายที่ดิน พ.ศ. ๒๔๙๗ (in html, pdf and tif)
        http://app-thca.krisdika.go.th/Naturesig/CheckSig?whichLaw=law4&folderName=%bb02&lawPath=%bb02-20-9999-update
 
<Note 6> There are some technical difficulties in Thai text processing [for examples: the multi-character vowels in Thai encoding systems, the placement of (sound) pitch control characters, the lack of (white space) gap between words, inconsistent use of Pali and Sanskrit words and so on] to be overcome. But a firm commitment to good laws making should encourage research and development to overcome these difficulties.