Section 1496
Statutory text (Thai original)
คำพิพากษาของศาลเท่านั้นที่จะแสดงว่า การสมรสที่ฝ่าฝืนมาตรา ๑๔๔๙ มาตรา ๑๔๕๐ และมาตรา ๑๔๕๘ เป็นโมฆะ คู่สมรส บิดามารดา หรือผู้สืบสันดานของคู่สมรสอาจร้องขอให้ศาลพิพากษาว่าการสมรสเป็นโมฆะได้ ถ้าไม่มีบุคคลดังกล่าว ผู้มีส่วนได้เสียจะร้องขอให้อัยการเป็นผู้ร้องขอต่อศาลก็ได้
Verbatim from the Royal Gazette / Office of the Council of State
English translation
It is only a judgment of the Court that effects the void of the marriage which is made against Section 1449, Section 1450 and Section 1458. The spouses, parents or descendants of the spouse may apply for a judgment of the Court effecting the void of the marriage. If there is none of the said persons, any interested person may request the Public Prosecutor to apply to the Court for such judgment.
This English translation is provided for reference only and has not yet been firm-verified. Always rely on the Thai original.
Firm annotation
Section 1496 is part of Book 5 (Family) of the Thai Civil and Commercial Code. This entry is awaiting firm-authored commentary; the statutory text above is verbatim from the Office of the Council of State (OCS Krisdika) Thai source, with the English translation from the FAO/UN FAOLEX repository. Always rely on the Thai original for legal proceedings.
Why this matters in practice
For lawyers: a marriage is presumed valid until a court declares otherwise — third parties (e.g. siblings, creditors) have no standing to petition for nullity. For clients: if you believe your marriage is void (e.g. your spouse was already married), you must obtain a court order; you cannot simply act as if unmarried.
Legislative history
Section 1496 has applied since the B.E. 2519 revision. The Marriage Equality Act (No. 24, B.E. 2567), in force 22 Jan 2025, did not change the standing rules but the provisions now apply equally to all marriages.
Supreme Court decisions interpreting this section
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Supreme Court Judgment No. 4981/2541 (1998)
A bigamous second marriage is void and may be declared so by court upon petition by a person with standing under §1496.
Where a person with an existing spouse registered a second marriage, the second marriage was void for bigamy under §1452; a petitioner with standing under §1496 was entitled to request the court to declare it void.
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Supreme Court Judgment No. 6051/2540 (1997)
A foreign marriage valid under both the law of the place of celebration and Thai law is recognised; nullity requires a ground under §1495.
A marriage validly contracted abroad under foreign law and also valid under Thai law was recognised; a petitioner could not have it declared void without establishing a ground under §1495.
Curated decisions with case numbers verified against the Supreme Court database. English renderings are the firm's editorial translation for study.
Cited in 22 Supreme Court decisions (1963 to 2017)
Selected citing decisions
- Decision 6924/2560 (2017)
- Decision 10442/2558 (2015)
- Decision 3898/2548 (2005)
- Decision 6365/2547 (2004)
- Decision 6935/2543 (2000)
- Decision 220/2541 (1998)
- Decision 6051/2540 (1997)
- Decision 7254/2539 (1996)
This list is selected automatically, weighted towards judgments that turn on this section rather than ones that merely recite it when passing sentence. It has not yet been reviewed by the firm.
Most often cited alongside
- Section 1452 17
- Section 1495 8
- Section 1497 5
- Section 1458 4
Sections that appear in the same judgments as this one most often. The figure is the number of decisions.
Counted across the firm's corpus of 83,652 Supreme Court decisions, 1921 to 2026. The count is complete; the stated year range trims rare outliers so it describes where the citations actually sit. These figures are computed by us and are not official court statistics. How we count these, and what we measured
Cite this section
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Plain citation
Civil and Commercial Code, s. 1496 (Thailand) -
Academic citation
Civil and Commercial Code (Thailand), s. 1496. ThaiLawOnline, https://www.thailawonline.com/thai-civil-code/section-1496/ (accessed 8 August 2026). -
Thai citation
ป.พ.พ. มาตรา 1496 -
Permalink
https://www.thailawonline.com/thai-civil-code/section-1496/ -
Embed on your site
<blockquote cite="https://www.thailawonline.com/thai-civil-code/section-1496/"><p>It is only a judgment of the Court that effects the void of the marriage which is made against Section 1449, Section 1450 and Section 1458. The spouses, parents or descendants of the spouse may apply for a judgment of the Court effecting the void…</p><footer>Civil and Commercial Code, s. 1496 (Thailand) — <a href="https://www.thailawonline.com/thai-civil-code/section-1496/">ThaiLawOnline</a></footer></blockquote>
The Thai text is authoritative. The English is an unofficial translation by ThaiLawOnline, free to reuse with attribution.