ABSTRACT
The modern Thai legal system owes its origins to reforms undertaken between 1892 and 1935 in a context where Siam (as Thailand was then known) was facing incursions on its sovereignty caused by foreign powers asserting extraterritorial jurisdiction and by the threat of possible colonization (Hooker, 1988). Foreign transnational elites and foreign legal models played a prominent role in the reform process, and the legal system that emerged had more in common with Western and colonial systems than the former Siamese system (Harding, 2008; Loos, 2006, pp. 29-71; Petchsiri, 1987). However, the Siamese elite were nevertheless able to influence which parts of foreign law were adopted and to partially preserve elements of the former system including elements of hierarchy and the position of the monarch as giver and final arbiter of justice (Engel, 1975; Kittayapong, 1990; Loos, 1998). As a result, the system developed was not a close replica of any single foreign system but rather an “amalgam” of elements of civil and common law traditions and, to a lesser extent, the former Siamese tradition (Darling, 1970, p. 197). In the period that has followed, new reforms and changing attitudes of core personnel have affected the balance between the elements, but all have retained some influence.
