Criminal Liability Presumption for Corporate Representative

Abstract

The Thai Constitutional Court had delivered the decision that the criminal liability presumption for corporate representative is unconstitutional due to its inconsistency against the principle of presumption of innocent in a criminal proceeding. Nevertheless, some countries are still applying such presumption of criminal guilt in the trial court. In addition, from the substantive law perspective, the previous wordings of the law before the revocation of the provision on presumption of criminal liability of a representative of a juristic person in Thailand was defective in the prescription of the wording, which was not in accordance with criminal offence structure regarding “action”. This should have been the only reason of its unconstitutionality, not its contradiction with the international principle of presumption of innocent. Therefore, this research studied that the criminal liability presumption for corporate representative is applicable lawfully and could be the benefit of criminal proceeding if such prescription is in accordance with the elements of crime under substantive law and the international principle on presumption of criminal liability.