THE NEED TO DRAFT A NEW CIVIL CODE IN THAILAND

Abstract

         Thailand reformed its legal system around a century ago.  In the first place, the nation adopted an Anglo-Saxon English legal system before drafting civil laws with several legal codes.  King Chulalongkorn appointed a committee to draw up a civil and commercial code in 1908.  With 3 more subsequent committees, Thai Civil and Commercial Code (TCCC) was finished in 1925 during the reign of King Vajiravudh. The drafting committee’s lack of knowledge about the imported rules and concepts and an adopted method led to confusion in construing the rules and concepts in the code. The committee paid little attention to commercial part of TCCC.  A prominent member of this committee claimed that TCCC was modelled after German Civil Code (BGB) through Japanese Civil Code (JCC).  However, the committee did not separate civil and commercial codes as in France, Germany and Japan, the countries of original models of TCCC.  Moreover, Anglo-Saxon laws have been deeply embedded in Thai legal system. As TCCC includes many Anglo-Saxon legal definitions and concepts, the mixture of these definitions and concepts from different legal systems often lead to misinterpretation.  To draft a new civil code and a commercial code separately, the legislators should look at the countries that have recently enacted the new civil codes as a breakaway from the old structures in French, German or Swiss civil codes as their main original templates.  These countries comprise the Netherlands, Brazil, Peru and Quebec Province of Canada.  The drafters need to import principles and concepts of Roman laws from English-speaking jurisdictions, such as Scotland in the UK, Louisiana State in the US, and South Africa to draw up provisions in the new Thai civil code in English first before translate these provisions into Thai. These principles and concepts will replace all Anglo-Saxon legal definitions in the old code.