Lèse Majesté: 16th Century Censorship Meets 21st Century Law

When hearing the expression “lèse majesté,” images of the Queen of Hearts ordering heads to be chopped off ASAP may come to mind. Marie-Antoinette, the queen who was once a “majesté” in France, herself lost her head during the French Revolution. Surely, the crime of lèse majesté is now a thing of the past?

Lèse Majesté Law is Heavily Enforced in Thailand

Not quite, as some monarchies still prosecute this crime. Several of the European monarchies still have lèse-majesté laws, including Norway, where prosecuting the crime can only be carried out by the king or with his consent.

Thailand, a constitutional monarchy, has had a lèse-majesté law since 1908, the year of the enactment of its first criminal code. Although the political powers of the king (currently King Bhumibol Adulyadej, who has reigned since 1946) are limited, the monarchy is held in high regard.  A clause in the Thai constitution states that "The King shall be enthroned in a position of revered worship and shall not be violated. No person shall expose the King to any sort of accusation or action." Article 112 of the Thai Criminal Code states that "Whoever defames, insults or threatens the King, the Queen, the Heir-apparent or the Regent, shall be punished with imprisonment of three to 15 years." The code does not define, however, what constitutes a defamation or an insult.

Thailand has been enforcing its lèse majesté law quite aggressively lately. It seems that the law has been used by Thailand prosecutors to suppress political speech critical of the monarchy, particularly speech by partisans of former Prime Miniter Thakshin Shinawatra, who are known as the "Red Shirts." In September 2006, a military coup d’état deseated Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra and dissolved the Parliament. Since 2009, the Thailand public prosecutor has filed 12 lèse majesté suits against the Red Shirts, or persons suspected of supporting them.

For instance, Ampon Tangnoppakul was sentenced last November to 20 years in prison by a Thai Court, for having sent four text messages to a government official criticizing Thailand’s royal family. He claimed that he never sent these messages, and that he does not even know how to send text messages. Mr. Tangnoppakul died last May while serving his sentence. 

He was not the only person incriminated of lèse-majesté in Thailand. Surachai Danwattananusorn, who has criticized the 2006 coup d’état, was sentenced in February 2012 to seven and a half years of prison for having insulted the monarchy. Journalists and bloggers are also feeling the heat. The editor of a Thai political website was sentenced in 2012 to a eight-month suspended sentence because she had not removed comments believed to be insulting to the monarchy, an offense under section 15 of the Thai Computer Crime Act.

Impact of the Thai law on Foreigners

It has been argued that Facebook could be prosecuted in Thailand under its Computer Crime Act if one of its users posts derogatory comments about the Thai government or the Thai king. Section 17(2) of the 2007 Thai Computer Crime Act indeed provides that a person committing an offense under the Act is publishable in Thailand, if the injured party is the Thai government or a Thai. Also, section 14(3) of the Act criminalizes imputing data in a system (posting on a blog is imputing data) which is the commission of the offense relating to national security according to the criminal code. Lèse majesté is criminalized by the criminal code. Thai censorship is also felt abroad. Google revealed in its last Transparency Report that it received four requests from Thailand’s Ministry of Information, Communication and Technology to remove 149 YouTube videos. These videos were allegedly insulting to the monarchy and thus violated Thailand's lèse-majesté law. Google stated that it had restricted 70 percent of these videos from view in Thailand in accordance with Thai law.

Oui, Lèse Majesté is Still a Crime in France

Lèse majesté does not necessarily refer solely to insulting a monarch. “Majestas” was defined by Ulpian, a Roman jurist, as "crimen illud quod adversus Populum Romanum vel adversus securitat