ABSTRACT
The Siamese government’s altercation with M. Lillie (Chapter 1) no doubt provided the impetus for the passing of Siam’s first “modern” defamation law, “The Royal Edict on defamation through falsely spoken or written words made known in the year 1900”1 (hereafter referred to as “the 1900 edict”). The writing of this law was a significant effort on the part the Siamese state because it called for a “standardization of language and legal discourse.” It was part and parcel of world-wide modernization, a movement of governments toward “simplification” and “legibility.”2 The edict itself was the result of a drastic simplification: in premodern Siam, there were the hundreds of ways to commit lèse-majesté, elaborated in tens of thousands of words (see earlier, p. 61). The comparable portion of the 1900 edict was a mere 71 words; the 1908 version 46 words. The 1900 edict spawned four separate lineages, as shown in Figures 4.1 through 4.7. In this chapter, I trace these different lines to the 2000s and explain in broad terms what changed in terms of legal wording, interpretations, punishments, and rationales. I also compare the inherent valuations granted by the state to persons and institutions: the prices, as it were, that the state levies for insults. What are the costs of a citizen’s reputation? A government’s? A monarchy’s?
