2024 Annual Report of the Ratsadonprasong Fund
Part 1: A Drainpipe for Money
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. In the following year, 2023, when numerous cases concluded at sentencing, their bail deposits were returned and the Fund bounced back. 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, we begin by showing a steady account balance in the 6-10 million-baht range throughout the year. From this steadiness comes the central issue of the year: 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.
This part includes:
– Fund Balance
– 2024 Income, Expenses & Losses
– Remaining Bail in the System
– Where Cases Are
Read Part 1 in full here.
Part 2: Until Incarceration Ends
In this chapter, we go into more detail about our support to detainees that stretches backward in time to the 2014 coup d’etat as well as forward to the decades to come. When and where do we support detainees?
Includes:
– A Look Around: Detainee Family Members Supported
– A Look Back: Retroactive Support for Lost Time
– A Look Ahead: Estimates of Time Left
Read Part 2 in full here.
Part 3: The Costs of Travel
In this chapter, we lay out our protocol for support for the costs of travel for accused, defendants, and detainee relatives. For two years in a row now, this category of support has seen more traffic than the support for detainees. At the three-year mark of the Ratsadonprasong Fund under the Siddhi-Issara Foundation’s care, this category of support just reached eight figures in total expenses (10 million baht, or about 300,000 US dollars).
Includes:
– Total Costs of Travel Reimbursed Over the Years
– Not Just Travel Costs
– At Courthouses Near You: 187 Justice Institutions in 42 Provinces
Read Part 3 in full here.