The Study of the Guidelines for Applying Administrative Fine or Non-criminal (Pinai) Fine to Replace the Criminal Punishment under the Alcohol Control Act B.E. 2551

Abstract

Although alcoholic beverage is not considered as drugs under the narcotics laws of Thailand, it is harmful to consumers and can cause social problems. Therefore, there must be a law to regulate them. At present, Thai’s law relating to alcoholic beverage control is the Alcohol Control Act B.E. 2551 (2008), which aims to regulate alcohol in four main areas: the control of alcoholic beverage producers or importers on products’ labelling; the sales of alcoholic beverage; the consumption of alcoholic beverage and the advertising of alcoholic beverage. Currently, criminal penalties, imprisonment and fines, are used as a means to control in the aforementioned areas.

However, when comparing the penalties applied by Thailand and the United Kingdom (England and Wales) and the French Republic, Thailand is suffering from a state of overcriminalisation. While United Kingdom (England and Wales) and the French Republic also use criminal penalties to control alcoholic beverage, but the punishment are mostly fines, which is different from Thailand. As it can be seen that all offences under the Alcohol Control Act B.E. 2551 studied in this research are subject to imprisonment.

Therefore, this research suggests that administrative measures or non-criminal (pinai) fines should be used instead of criminal penalties for offences under the Alcohol Control Act B.E. 2551 to justify the punishment and compliance with Constitution of Thailand B.E.2560 Section 77.