Abstract:
The Constitutional Court was first established by the Constitution of the Kingdom of Thailand B.E. 2540. One of its major responsibilities is to consider whether an act is consistent with the Constitution. According to Section 268 of the Constitution, the decision of the Constitutional Court Shall be deemed final and binding on the National Assembly, Council of Ministers, Courts and other State organs. However, there remains an ambiguous interpretation that when the Constitution Court decides that the provisions of a law applied by the court is contrary to or inconsistent with the Constitution, how shall that decision be binding the court. To be more specifically, how and at what extent shall that decision be binding the court whose jurisdiction is over criminal cases. Under Section 264 paragraph three, the decision of the Constitutional Court shall apply to all cases but shall not effect final judgments of the Courts. In a criminal case, it is thus unfair for a convict who was punished by the final judgment of the court applying the law contrary to or inconsistent with the Constitution. Thus, it is necessary to study about the protection of a convicts rights in conformity with the criminal law rules. To resolve the mentioned problem, the author has proposed to submit the Act about the Effect of the Decisions of the Constitutional Court on Criminal cases. This Act shall provide the effect of the decisions of the Constitutional Court on criminal cases that in case where the court made a final judgment and later the Constitutional Court has a decision declaring that the law applied by the court was contrary to or inconsistent with the Constitution, this case can be retrialed.