Thai mission to France (18th April - 1st May 2004)

Reforms in Thailand
The delegation was headed by Mr Kraisorn Barameeauychal, General Director of the enforcement department at the Justice Ministry and comprised experts, judges and judicial officers.

The Thai Justice Ministry, in cooperation with its enforcement department has launched a programme of reforms (2002-2006) aimed at modifying the Thai judicial system, particularly in the field of enforcement and that of the functions of a judicial officer.

In Thailand, the basis of civil law is the Napoleonic code and the legal system in that country is very close to the one used in France.
Judicial officers are very highly skilled and high level civil servants. They are ranked and placed under the authority of a General Director of the enforcement department, who is under the Justice Ministry.

Activities are carried out by three types of officer:

A return to relations with France

The French chamber and the UIHJ have had extremely irregular relations over the past ten years. Previous delegations who came to find out about the activity of French judicial officers were received in Paris and the UIHJ was invited to Thailand in 1998, but since then relations have been suspended.

They have just started up again within the context of this trip which is part of the reform project that is currently being looked at.
A terrible economic recession happened in Asia in 1998 and Thailand was amongst the countries worst affected (with Japan). Since then, the enforcement department, auctions branch, has been quite unable to deal with the volume of work falling to it.

The Thai authorities measured the extent of the problem with increasing acuity when the recession came to an end but activities within the department increased still further.

A busy schedule

So the government, confronted with exponential growth in sales files, decided to consider modifying the current system, seeking a more efficient method. A group of experts was appointed, which has undertaken numerous trips to Europe, America and Australia before coming to Paris.
Its task is to propose to the government a method of operation that is compatible with the Thai regime, involving specifically two activities: enforcement and public sales.

An extremely varied and busy programme awaited the mission in Paris, with a whole series of conferences and meetings (national chamber, Paris chamber, auction sales, study of technologies, training, etc.) and in Marseilles (visits to judicial officers' firms, action in the field) where they made a high profile visit to Euromed.

After this long trip and an in-depth study, the delegation was set to submit a report recommending implementation of a new regime for the profession of Joo Panakngan Bang Cup Kadee (!) (in other words, judicial officer or bailiff), copying the new status from the one used in France, with gradual development towards making this a profession in the private sector.
This decision, which was communicated to France and the UIHJ was followed by an immediate invitation for the two host organisations to participate in Thailand in a series of conferences intended to present the status and functioning of the profession in France.