Thailand and the United Kingdom have built excellent diplomatic relationships during the last decades. As a result of these relationships, both countries signed a treaty for legal assistance in criminal matters called “Treaty on Mutual Legal Assistance in Criminal Matters, 1992,” or “MLAT,” which is a framework for criminal cooperation between Thailand and the United Kingdom (also with other jurisdictions).
In H&P Thai Lawyers opinion, this treaty focused on assistance based on an inquiry procedure and other criminal matters that are relevant to persons of both countries. Due to this treaty, the legal aid will not reply exclusively on the requestor country in the scenario where an offence is in the criminal law of the requested jurisdiction, or the requested jurisdiction can take legal actions in similar circumstances.
In Thailand the treaty stipulates that the Office of the Attorney General of Thailand will be the central coordinator, which has the power to consider and cooperate between Thailand and various other countries. As Uk is regarded, the central coordinator is the minister of the Ministry of Interior.
As in the last few years, H&P lawyers notice that based on our professional experience UK has been working closely with Thailand to prosecute Uk citizens with residence in Thailand in a wide range of cases. Nevertheless, this is not the only case as there are other 15 countries that signed the Mutual Legal Assistance Treaty-MLAT with Thailand:
- United States of America.
- the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.
- Canada.
- France
- Norway.
- the People’s Republic of China.
- the Republic of Korea.
- India.
- Poland.
- Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka
- Peru.
- Belgium.
- Australia.
- Association of Asian Nations Southeast Asia (ASEAN).
- Ukraine
In criminal investigations and criminal proceedings, these fifteen countries can proceed between the central coordinators directly without passing through diplomatic channels (Embassy, Attaches etc).
In case there is a country that didn’t sign this cooperation treaty, the cooperation with Thailand should follow and be carried out by diplomatic channels. In these cases, the Department of Consular Affairs, and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs are the coordination units with the embassies of consulates of the counterparty with the help from the Office of the Attorney General in criminal cooperation and the Office of the Court of Justice regarding civil cooperation.
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