The Palace Law Of Ayutthaya And The Thammasat

This book contains the first academic translations of key legal texts from the Ayutthaya era (1351–1767), along with an essay on the role of law in Thai history.

This book contains the first academic translations of key legal texts from the Ayutthaya era (1351–1767), along with an essay on the role of law in Thai history. The legal history of Southeast Asia has languished because few texts are accessible in translation. The Three Seals Code is a collection of Thai legal manuscripts surviving from the Ayutthaya era. The Palace Law, probably dating to the late fifteenth century, was the principal law on kingship and government. The Thammasat, a descendant of India's dharmasastra, stood at the head of the Code and gave it authority. Here these two key laws are presented in English translation for the first time along with detailed annotations and analyses of their content. The coverage of family arrangements, court protocol, warfare, royal women, and ceremonial conduct in the Palace Law presents a detailed portrayal of Siamese kingship, reaching beyond terms such as devaraja, thammaraja, and cakravartin. Close analysis of the Thammasat questions the assumption that this text has a long-standing and fundamental role in Thai legal practice. Royal lawmaking had a large and hitherto unappreciated role in the premodern Thai state. This book is an important contribution to Thai history, Southeast Asian history, and comparative legal studies.

The first book to provide a broad coverage of Thai legal history in the English language.

This book analyses the unique constitutional system in operation in Thailand as a continuous process of bricolage between various Western constitutional models and Buddhist doctrines of Kingship. Reflecting on the category of 'constitutional monarchy' and its relationship with notions of the rule of law, it investigates the hybridised semi-authoritarian, semi-liberal monarchy that exists in Thailand. By studying constitutional texts and political practices in light of local legal doctrine, the book shows that the monarch's affirmation of extraordinary prerogative powers strongly rests on wider doctrinal claims about constitutionalism and the rule of law. This finding challenges commonly accepted assertions about Thailand, arguing that the King's political role is not the remnant of the 'unfinished' borrowing of Western constitutionalism, general disregard for the law, or cultural preference for 'charismatic authority', as generally thought. Drawing on materials and sources not previously available in English, this important work provides a comprehensive and critical account of the Thai 'mixed constitutional monarchy' from the late 19th century to the present day.

The first full history of a great commercial and political center that rose in Asia over almost five centuries.

Buddhism and Comparative Constitutional Law offers the first comprehensive account of the entanglements of Buddhism and constitutional law in Sri Lanka, Myanmar, Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam, Tibet, Bhutan, China, Mongolia, Korea, and Japan. Bringing together an interdisciplinary team of experts, the volume offers a complex portrait of “the Buddhist-constitutional complex,” demonstrating the intricate and powerful ways in which Buddhist and constitutional ideas merged, interacted and co-evolved. The authors also highlight the important ways in which Buddhist actors have (re)conceived Western liberal ideals such as constitutionalism, rule of law, and secularism. Available Open Access on Cambridge Core, this trans-disciplinary volume is written to be accessible to a non-specialist audience.

An innovative new social history of Thailand told through the lens of changing ideals of manners, civility and behaviour.

This introductory book on Thai politics and the rule of law explains why chronically unstable Thailand struggles to mediate and adjudicate its political disputes. It focuses on the continuities between the pre-1932 and post-1932 periods. Since the shift to constitutional monarchy in 1932, the power of the monarch and military has endured, the legislature, electorate and, until recently, judiciary have been comparatively powerless, and constitutions and laws have been comparatively unimportant. Historical continuities are also evident in the persistence of hierarchical thinking and ethno-nationalism, both of which have inhibited open debates about governance. And the rule of law does not always apply, owing to different principles underlying western and traditional Siamese law and the emergence of a distinctively Thai legal culture and consciousness. Thailand’s governance was re-cast ambitiously in the 1890s, 1932 and 1997. Since 1997, governing Thailand and developing Thailand’s economy have become harder. So political disputes have become more acute and the absence of a national consensus on dispute settlement mechanisms more obvious. Until governance is again re-cast, Thailand’s political instability and cycle of coups will continue.