OK, next item on the agenda, the Torture and Enforced Disappearance Prevention and Suppression Bill, for approval before it goes to the Council of State and the NLA.  I don’t know if anyone’s had chance to go through …

Sorry for interrupting, but did you say ‘prevention’?

Er, yes, that’s what it says.  Prevention and suppression.

What on earth for?  I mean, I have no objection to a law regulating torture, you know, who can do it, what methods are OK, etc, etc, but are you seriously talking about banning it?

Yes, that’s what it seems to say.

Well, speaking for the Ministry of Social Development and Human Security, and for the police force, this would make our job nigh impossible.  How can the police be expected to get confessions without knocking people about a bit?  It’s a well-known fact of investigative procedure.

And from the security point of view, we do have to consider the ticking time bomb scenario.  You know, where a suspect knows of a serious terrorist act about to take place at any moment, a grenade attack, say, or revelations about government wrong-doing, or another lèse majesté posting on Facebook.  We have to get the information out of them immediately if we’re going to prevent it.  You can’t do that with a quiet chat over a cup of tea, you know.

No, I see your point.

So who’s proposing this? 

Ministry of Justice.  Minister, could you explain?

Me?  Oh, right.  Well, as far as I know this is something held over from the previous government …

Oh well then, why don’t we just ditch it?

… and the one before that and, oh, I don’t know how far back it goes.

But what’s the point?  Torture has a long and honorable history in the security affairs of this country.  It has served the nation well.  We’ve even had the US using our facilities for their torture …

But we don’t officially know that.

… so what on earth possesses your officials to come up with this fiddle-faddle?

Yes, I’ve just spoken to my people on the phone and it’s international law.

What?  I thought was a Thai law you’re proposing?

No, no.  Er, yes, it was decided years ago that it would look good for Thailand if we signed these UN conventions things on torture and, what’s the other one?  Enforced disappearance, that’s it.  Stop victims from kicking up an unholy fuss with the foreigners.  So we did sign.  Only as long as we ha no laws to enforce them, it just looked like window-dressing.  So apparently somebody got the idea that we would have to have a law.  I mean, all this human rights stuff is mostly PR.

But we don’t need to sacrifice the stability of the state just so we look good in the eyes of foreigners.  My officials at Foreign Affairs have already calculated that 4.7 billion people around the world support this government 100%.  That’s a total of 85% of all the countries in the world who have expressed confidence in us. 

With all due respect, Minister, 85% of the world couldn’t even find Thailand on the map.

That is defeatist talk.  Of course they have heard of Thailand.  Our supreme institution has the longest-serving, most revered monarch in the world.  Everybody must know that and if you dare to deny it, don’t be surprised if you’re on the wrong end of a 112 accusation.

I’m sorry, can we get back to this torture bill.  It has been drafted, I understand, in consultation with people who have in fact been tortured and disappeared.

Er, not the disappeared because, well, they’ve disappeared.

Families of, then.  But that was rather an unfortunate step.  It means if we quietly drop it, or materially change things, they’ll immediately know about it. 

What about loopholes?  Martial law and the ISA and Section 44 of the constitution and so on.  That allows us to carry on as normal, right?

Er, afraid not.  It specifically says no exceptions.  It’s quite a comprehensive piece of legislation.

I can’t imagine the Justice Ministry has anyone with enough nous to draft a watertight law.  Who wrote this?

No it was an academic.  Faculty of Law, Thammasat.

Oh well, what can you expect?

Yes, I’ll make a note to speak to his rector.  But what are we going to do about this bill?

Well, maybe the Council of State can gut it or add a poison clause or two.  If not, we’ll have the NLA vote it down by secret ballot.  And if none of that works, we’ll just wait for the first case to come to court and have it referred to the Constitutional Court.  They can just declare it unconstitutional on some arcane legal grounds that no one can understand. 

Yes, safe pair of hands, the Constitutional Court.

About author:  Bangkokians with long memories may remember his irreverent column in The Nation in the 1980's. During his period of enforced silence since then, he was variously reported as participating in a 999-day meditation retreat in a hill-top monastery in Mae Hong Son (he gave up after 998 days), as the Special Rapporteur for Satire of the UN High Commission for Human Rights, and as understudy for the male lead in the long-running ‘Pussies -not the Musical' at the Neasden International Palladium (formerly Park Lane Empire).

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Torture and enforced disappearance in Thailand: the attempt during the junta government to pass a bill