In the Maze of Rules

2023 Report of the Ratsadonprasong Fund

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.

Part 4: Detainees in the Maze

This part includes:
– Detention Timelines of the 48 detainees we supported
– How to Send Money to a Detainee: Expectation
– How to Send Money to a Detainee: Reality

Read Part 4 in full here.

Part 5: Drives in the Maze

A debriefing on our donation drives, with the hope that there will be no more drive in circles in the maze of the law and its practitioners.

Last year, with the 2022 Report of the Ratsadonprasong Fund, Part 5: Donation Drives, we presented the uplifting story of crowdfunding through the examples in 2022 where people helped keep the Fund afloat in four critical moments.

This year, we would like to present the underside of that story: how all our donation drives were in fact a maze.

Read part 5 in full here.

Part 6: Bailors in the Maze

We would like to close out the 2023 Annual Report with a maze for bailors, the category we put in the last place, though the tribulations of this Fund began (befell!) in the first place because of bailing duties which were first taken up by an auntie who later brought on another auntie, followed by the christening of “the Ratsadonprasong Fund” to honor the will of the people, and eventually the government registration as “the Siddhi-Issara Foundation” to safeguard the fund until its mission’s expiration date.

This part includes:
– Bailor Breakdown: from the 105 bailors responsible for 687 defendants in 356 cases
– How to Get Bail Back: Expectation
– How to Get Bail Back: Reality
– How to Not Get Bail Back

Read Part 6 in full here.