Our first-ever Annual Report of the Ratsadonprasong Fund for the year 2022, if you remember it, put together the story of crowdfunding during that year of emergencies when the Fund’s account balance dropped from the initial 9.9 million baht (when the Siddhi-Issara Foundation was chartered and the Fund came under its care) to the danger zone of less than 1 million baht. The graph here titled “Fund Balance” displays the drop followed by the bounce back during the following year, 2023, when numerous cases concluded at sentencing, after which their bail deposits were returned, and as a result the focus of our 2023 Annual Report shifted towards the maze of bail money alongside the maze of rules and irregularities in which various groups of people were stuck as they navigated the justice process.
Now, on this occasion of presenting our operations from last year, 2024, the same graph displays a steadiness in the 6-10 million-baht range throughout the year. From this steadiness comes the central issue of 2024 and onwards: the redistribution or “draining” of funds, which shall go at a faster rate than bail returns. Most of the money redistributed has been going to detainees and their families after sentencing; the situation is such that their right to bail is no longer the answer, now that their exercise of that right to have their day in court has turned out this way.
You can estimate the rate of outgoing versus incoming monetary flow from the next bar graph titled “Annual Income, Expenses & Losses.” Note in particular that without any more donation drives, donations from the public accounted for less than one percent of all income to the Fund in 2024. Still, we had enough income throughout the year from bail returns totaling 19,098,000 baht, or 98 percent of all income. Even though new bail postings (mostly in the stages of appellate and supreme courts) amounted to 12,785,000 baht throughout the year, but the incoming bail still exceeded the outgoing bail by 6,313,000 baht—about the same as the differential in 2023 of 6.34 million baht.
This recycling of bail money has begun to be rerouted into permanent expenses: support for costs of travel to case dates for accused, defendants, juveniles, together with their guardians, as well as costs of travel for family members of detainees. This category of support amounted to 4.37 million baht last year—close enough, again, to the 2023 number of 4.26 million baht. Incidentally, this did not include our support for damages at 84,261 baht last year.
Another category of support with permanent expenses is the monthly stipend for detainees, of which the amount last year tripled that of the year before: 2,292,500 baht for 61 individuals in 2024 versus 757,500 baht for 48 individuals in 2023. This large increase came partly from retroactive support for former detainees, some of whom had been denied bail for years during trial until their cases were dismissed (!), while others had served their prison sentences.
Yet another category of support is the monthly stipend for family members of detainees. Begun officially in the latter half of 2024, this category of support totaled 654,000 baht to 41 family members whom detainees indicated as the beneficiary so as to make their family’s hardship a little more endurable during their absence.
We have another outgoing flow that is permanent but, as it happens beyond our control, does not qualify as an expense. Filed under “losses,” the flow consists of the bail seized by the court after the defendant failed to appear on a court date. Just in 2024, bail forfeitures totaled 7.43 million baht, or double the combined amounts of past forfeitures from 2021-2023 at 3.658 million baht.
So, how much money do we have left? Look at the next image “Remaining Bail in the System” and you will see that once we subtract the bail forfeitures, the remaining bail at the end of 2024 sits at 33,193,500 baht, a 14-million drop from the end of 2023 at about 47 million baht, itself a 10-million drop from the end of 2022.
And, the one-million-dollar question, where exactly in the system is this 33-million baht? In the last image, the infographics detail that this amount of money is currently bailing out 443 accused and defendants from 216 cases in 23 courts and 1 police station; the 443 are further broken down into stages: 63 under police investigation, 272 on trial at the court of first instance, 80 at the appeal court, 16 at the supreme court, and 12 whose cases have concluded but whose bail is yet to be returned.
Overall, in 2024, our 7.4 million baht in permanent expenses (all categories combined: costs of travel, damages, detainee support, and detainee family support) exceeded the 6.31-million-baht differential from bail returns minus “recycled” bail postings. The losses from bail forfeitures also amounted to 7.4 million baht, practically equal to our permanent expenses. Nevertheless, we still have our piggy bank money to disburse for the foreseeable future to those having their day in court and those waiting for their day of release from prison—our 33-million-baht “savings deposit” in the Thai justice system at the end of 2024.
