Abstract:
Nowadays, the proportion of corruption, particularly the abuse of conduct committed by officials or bureaus, has become increasing dramatically. The patterns of this offence are more complicated and more difficult to investigate than other general offences. It can be usually seen that the offenders choose to escape from the judicial proceedings so as to be barred by the statute of limitation. Therefore, the State cannot inflict offenders eventually. Thus, this research paper aims to study and know the proper period of limitation in the corruption cases in Thailand. According to the study, the corruption is one of the problems which have been regarded by many countries. One of the reasons is that the period of limitation in corruption case is too short which will be in contrast with the difficulty to find the evidences and the abuse of the offence. In addition, the reason to set up the old period of limitation is not up to date with the present crime. At the present, the ways of thinking of each country are becoming the same direction that it should not have the limitation in corruption cases or limitation should be interrupted when the offender escapes from the judicial proceeding. Additionally, the United Nations has created the provisions for solving corruption problems that can be seen in the Draft of UN convention against corruption A.C. 2003. The convention aims to provide provisions and enforce the Member States to harmonize such longer limitation and interrupted limitation into their domestic laws, particularly in cases that the offender escapes from the judicial proceeding. Thus, the author may suggest that the period of limitation of corruption cases, which provided in the Penal Code, should be amended. It should be extended to 20 years as maximum. The interruption of limitation should be applied by the statement of public prosecutor that can be done by filing the statement to the Courts of Justice. The courts should also have power to designate both periods and conditions of limitation so as to be enforced by the officers during the interrupted limitation. Moreover, there should be a good management, a check and balance system, or a good criminal measurement so as to enhance the criminal proceedings become more efficient.