An Elementary Study of the Reception of Modern Western Law in Thailand

Abstract

The main object of this article is to sketch out the history of reception of modern Western Law in Thailand. The reception began on a full scale in the form of codification work during the reign of King Chulalongkorn (1868-1910). This task was first led by mainly Belgian legal advisers to Siam government. The year 1895, when the Legislative Council was inaugurated, was the landmark of the codification work. Provisional legal-procedure laws and courts laws modeled on modern Western Law were promulgated during this period. In 1898, the first modern criminal code in Thailand was drafted by the Codification Committee. We should not overlook the fact that there was a Japanese legal expert in the Committee, Masao Tokichi, Doctor of Civil Law of Yale University and that he was crdered to make the first draft. Because it was modeled partly on the Japanese criminal code of 1880, and the 1907 draft Japanese criminal code, the first modern criminal code in Thailand had many points of similarity to that of Japan. This means that Thai first modern criminal law received the principles of modern Western Law through the Japanese criminal code; which was modeled mainly on German and French criminal codes.