Section 12: Challenging a sole judge on serious grounds
Statutory text (Thai original)
เมื่อศาลใดมีผู้พิพากษาแต่เพียงคนเดียว ผู้พิพากษานั้นอาจถูกคัดค้านด้วยเหตุใดเหตุหนึ่งตามที่กำหนดไว้ในมาตราก่อนนั้นได้ หรือด้วยเหตุประการอื่นอันมีสภาพร้ายแรงซึ่งอาจทำให้การพิจารณาหรือพิพากษาคดีเสียความยุติธรรมไป
English translation
When a court has only one judge, that judge may be challenged on any one of the grounds specified in the preceding section, or on any other ground of a serious nature that may cause the trial or adjudication of the case to be deprived of justice.
This English translation is provided for reference only and has not yet been firm-verified. Always rely on the Thai original.
Firm annotation
Section 12 broadens the grounds of challenge for the single-judge court. Alongside the enumerated grounds in Section 11, it adds an open category: any other ground of a serious nature that may cause the trial or adjudication to be deprived of justice. This wider standard reflects the greater risk where one judge alone controls the case, without colleagues to balance a possible bias. The provision works together with Sections 11, 13 and 14, so the same procedure and timing for raising and deciding a challenge apply, but the substantive test here reaches beyond the closed list.
Why this matters in practice
If your case is before a single judge and you see conduct that seriously threatens a fair trial but does not fit the fixed list in Section 11, this section may still support a challenge. The test of serious grounds is demanding, and you must still comply with the timing and procedure in Section 13. Because the standard is fact-sensitive, get a lawyer's read on your specific facts before moving.
Cited in 7 Supreme Court decisions (1973 to 2022)
Selected citing decisions
- Decision 1585/2565 (2022)
- Decision 87/2565 (2022)
- Decision 79/2565 (2022)
- Decision 3716/2564 (2021)
- Decision 751/2516 (1973)
- Decision 653-655/2549 (2006)
- Decision 1227/2522 (1979)
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
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
Frequently asked questions
How is Section 12 different from Section 11?
Section 11 sets a fixed list of grounds for challenging a judge. Section 12 applies to a single-judge court and adds a further, open ground: any serious matter that could make the trial or judgment unfair.
What is a serious ground under Section 12?
It is a grave circumstance beyond the fixed list that genuinely threatens a fair trial or judgment. The bar is high and the court assesses it on the specific facts.
Cite this section
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Plain citation
Civil Procedure Code, s. 12 (Thailand) -
Academic citation
Civil Procedure Code (Thailand), s. 12. ThaiLawOnline, https://www.thailawonline.com/thai-civil-procedure-code/section-12/ (accessed 11 August 2026). -
Thai citation
ป.วิ.พ. มาตรา 12 -
Permalink
https://www.thailawonline.com/thai-civil-procedure-code/section-12/ -
Embed on your site
<blockquote cite="https://www.thailawonline.com/thai-civil-procedure-code/section-12/"><p>When a court has only one judge, that judge may be challenged on any one of the grounds specified in the preceding section, or on any other ground of a serious nature that may cause the trial or adjudication of the case to be deprived…</p><footer>Civil Procedure Code, s. 12 (Thailand) — <a href="https://www.thailawonline.com/thai-civil-procedure-code/section-12/">ThaiLawOnline</a></footer></blockquote>
The Thai text is authoritative. The English is an unofficial translation by ThaiLawOnline, free to reuse with attribution.