THAI LAW - Passports, your personal
property
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| Thai law |
Over the years I have
seen many times the people who were cheated or had suffered losses due to fraud
or a scam going to a police station with the offender to sort out their
problem. Normally the police will try to get them to compromise with each other
by being the middle man, they will try to negotiate between the two parties and
ask if or when the offender can pay back the amount owed whilst scheduling
another meeting at a future date to check on the situation. After the
negotiations on the condition of the agreement on both parties the case will be
dropped for a while and the police will ask you to pay back the money owed in a
future date normally a week to two weeks. This is always the case with the
police including other situations such as accidents etc. not just fraud or
cheating cases. After all this the police will tell you that you will have to
leave your original passport with the police until the time that you pay back
the sum when the passport will be returned.
One
such case concerned three parties’ two men and one woman, the two men being
business partners and the woman being the girlfriend of one of the partners.
The lady was brought to the police station by the business partner of her
boyfriend and was accused of cheating nine million baht from him. She argued
that she did not have anything to do with it or any of the money at all and
claimed it was all concerning her boyfriend. But the business partner argued
that they had sometimes transferred company funds to her bank account in
Singapore, on realizing this woman became scared but still stuck to her story.
The lady said to the police that she would try to talk to her boyfriend about
how to pay back the money he owed but it would be difficult as he was arrested
regarding another case.
At
that time the police said that if you are planning to pay him back can you give
me your passport and then come back to talk with each other again about the
plan. After this agreement and handing the passport over, at the next scheduled
meeting she found out that the business partner had no evidence whatsoever of sending
money to her account. After this she should have been let go with no legal
obligations whatsoever but this was not the case at all. Because the business
partner did not drop the case and kept trying to find a way to take the case to
court and would not stop until the police allowed him to do so. The legal proceedings
took a very long time, in fact almost 3 years during which the lady could not
travel abroad due to her passport being property of the court. At the end of
the case the defendant was found to be innocent which was the case since the
start but because of her passport being in the hands of the police it she was
dragged into a long and drawn out process. Unless there is evidence of your
wrongdoing, then under Thai law, the police have no authority to retain your
passport.
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| Thai law |
If
you wish to settle a similar case quickly then please go ahead and try to make
a compromise with the other party with the help of the police and schedule
another appointment at the station at a later date. But make sure that you do
not hand over your passport, if it is like the above story then if there is no
evidence you are free to go, you can fly out of the Kingdom, you can work
normally and do everything you would normally do. But if you give your passport
over to the police then it is like you are saying that you are the guilty
person and you are agreeing that you have to pay back the necessary amount to
the other person. Your passport is your personal property which should be on
you at all times similar to a Thai citizens ID card, for something like this
the police cannot force you to hand it over and they have no legal authority to
make you.
THAI LAW - Passports, your personal
property
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