Section 147: Bar on re-investigation

Supreme Court decisions interpreting this section

1. Supreme Court Judgment No. 3095/2562 (2019)

   A final non-prosecution order releases the suspect from being a suspect on that charge. Where the order covered the charge of driving while using a category 1 narcotic and the remaining charge was using that narcotic, the suspect was not accused of, or being prosecuted for, another offence punishable by imprisonment, so the condition in section 19 paragraph one of the Drug Addict Rehabilitation Act B.E. 2545 was met and the prosecution had first to have him examined for use of or addiction to narcotics.

   At the investigation stage the defendant was charged with two offences: using a category 1 narcotic (methamphetamine) and driving while using it. The prosecutor for Suphan Buri issued a final non-prosecution order on the driving charge only, so the defendant was released from being a suspect on that charge. The remaining charge of using the narcotic was then prosecuted in this case. Because the condition in section 19 paragraph one of the Drug Addict Rehabilitation Act B.E. 2545 was satisfied, the prosecution should first have had the defendant examined for use of or addiction to narcotics. It did not, so the defendant lost the right to rehabilitation and the prosecution had no power to bring the case.

2. Supreme Court Judgment No. 4802/2559 (2016)

   Where no new and material evidence appears after a final non-prosecution order, re-investigating the same matter is barred under section 147 and the resulting prosecution is void for want of power.

   Because no new and material evidence likely to lead to conviction appeared, re-investigating the defendants for jointly selling counterfeit fertilizer, the same matter, was barred under section 147; that investigation was not lawful, so the prosecution had no power to prosecute that charge and the defendants' appeal succeeded on that point.

3. Supreme Court Judgment No. 1821/2557 (2014)

   Section 147 concerns the effect of a final non-prosecution order, which bars any further investigation of that person in the same matter, and belongs to the investigation stage. It cannot be applied by analogy, as the nearest applicable law under Civil and Commercial Code section 4 paragraph two, to a public prosecutor's power under section 11 (7) of the Public Prosecutor Act B.E. 2498 to decide whether to appeal further; nothing in the procedural law prevents the prosecutor from changing a decision not to appeal.

   In a contempt case, where the court of first instance had punished the person of its own motion and the Court of Appeal had discharged him, the public prosecutor first ordered that there be no further appeal and then reversed that order. The person concerned argued the reversal required new evidence, by analogy with Section 147. The Supreme Court rejected the analogy: Section 147 belongs to the investigation stage and is a different matter from the prosecutor's power under section 11 (7) of the Public Prosecutor Act B.E. 2498, and no provision of procedural law prevents such a change of decision.

Curated decisions with case numbers verified against the Supreme Court database. English renderings are the firm's editorial translation for study.