In the Maze of Rules

2023 Report of the Ratsadonprasong Fund

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Part 1: Fund’s Health

We’re back with another Annual Report! This time, under the theme “In the Maze of Rules,” we compile not only movements but also hiccups and halts in the movement of money and people through the judicial process in 2023.

This opening part goes into:
– Daily fund balance
– Donations to two accounts (the Fund for bail and assistance money strictly for political defendants & the Operations Account for all costs incurred, including bailor travel costs)
– Bail posted vs bail returned
– Money and people in courts’ hands each quarter

Read Part 1 in full here.

Part 2: Where Donations Are Going

We closed the previous chapter “Fund’s Health” with the amount of bail money in the judicial maze which decreased 2-3 million baht each quarter from almost 60 million baht in March 2023 to 50 million baht in December 2023. You might have wondered, where does that bail money go after leaving the judicial maze? This chapter has answers: the money is going, going, gone…

1. To defendants (฿4.26m via travel costs for 375 people in 277 cases in 2023)
2. To detainees (฿757,500 for 48 people in 2023)
3. To courts (฿3.6m via bail forfeitures and ฿354,000 via bailor fines in 2021-23)

Read Part 2 in full here.

Part 3: Defendants in the Maze

When it comes to the so-called “rights in the justice process,” one might expect that one’s experience in it will proceed in a linear fashion in time toward an end point, not circle back to the same spot, that one will gain access to rights one is entitled to. Such rights begin with the right to bail, which is not simply an end in itself, but a means to secure the right to fight one’s case with dignity in the courtroom—where the fight actually plays out, because a successful legal defense goes beyond whether a defendant is granted bail or denied bail. But since that is not the reality of many political defendants, it all turns into a maze.

This part includes:
– Overlaps: Modes of Support for Defendants in the Recesses of the Judicial Maze
– Bail Breakdown: By Number of Cases per Defendant
– Bail Breakdown: One-Case Defendants Only
– Costs of Travel Breakdown

Read Part 3 in full here.