Why Civil Procedure Thailand Courts Follow Offers Almost No Discovery
Civil procedure Thailand courts apply gives parties almost no pretrial discovery — each side must generally build its own evidence, with only a narrow path to subpoena documents from the other party.A defendant in Thai court must present a reply to the complaint within a statutorily prescribed time, following the same summons process we covered in Part 2. If the defendant fails to do this, the court may refuse to allow admission of his defense if the result will be an unfounded delay of the proceedings. However, in our experience, courts will often allow extensions of time for almost any tenable reason (and sometimes without any reason). This common practice can be justifiably frustrating to a good-faith plaintiff’s desire for just and efficient resolution of the dispute. But it should be said that over the past decade we have noted improvement with regard to such procedural irregularities, and we are confident such improvement will continue as Thailand continues on its course towards a fully developed rule-of-law jurisdiction.
By common-law jurisdiction standards — but not unlike most civil law countries — Thai law provides for very little pretrial discovery, the one exception being a request for admissions of fact. Each party must generally prepare and produce its own evidence, and the other party must then refute that evidence on its merits, with its own evidence, or both. A party may request that the court subpoena evidence from the other party. However, such a subpoena must identify the specific document sought and the specific relevant purpose for which it is sought. Furthermore, the requesting party must show good cause for the court to grant such a motion. As a practical matter, such requests are not often made, and even less often actually granted under the Civil Procedure Code.
This limited approach to discovery under civil procedure Thailand courts follow places a premium on how well each party prepares its own evidence from the outset, since there is little opportunity to compel disclosure from the other side once proceedings are underway.