Section 194: Law-Only Appeal Binds Appellate Court to Found Facts
Statutory text (Thai original)
ถ้ามีอุทธรณ์แต่ในปัญหาข้อกฎหมาย ในการวินิจฉัยปัญหาข้อกฎหมายนั้น ๆ ศาลอุทธรณ์จะต้องฟังข้อเท็จจริงตามที่ศาลชั้นต้นวินิจฉัยมาแล้วจากพยานหลักฐานในสำนวน
English translation
If the appeal is only on a question of law, then in deciding such question of law the Court of Appeal must accept the facts as already determined by the Court of First Instance from the evidence in the record.
This English translation is provided for reference only and has not yet been firm-verified. Always rely on the Thai original.
Firm annotation
Section 194 fixes the scope of review in a law-only appeal within Title 4, Chapter 1. Where a party appeals solely on a question of law, the Court of Appeal is bound to the facts as found by the trial court from the record and may not reweigh the evidence. The provision reinforces the fact-versus-law division that runs through Section 193 bis and, through Section 225, governs law-only petitions to the Supreme Court as well, so the apex court likewise decides the legal point on the facts already established below. The same principle is applied by reference in specialized jurisdictions, such as the Intellectual Property and International Trade Court, whose statute imports Section 194.
Why this matters in practice
This section shapes appeal strategy: if you frame your appeal as law-only, you cannot ask the higher court to find the facts differently, and you are locked into the trial court's factual findings. If you genuinely dispute the facts, you must preserve a fact appeal where it is available rather than dressing a factual complaint as a legal one, because the court will still treat the facts as settled. The same limit applies when you reach the Supreme Court on a point of law. Deciding whether your real grievance is factual or legal is a judgment call best made with counsel through an online consultation with a Thai lawyer.
Supreme Court decisions interpreting this section
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Supreme Court Judgment No. 2594/2562 (2019)
In a law-only petition, the Supreme Court must accept the facts as found by the trial and appellate courts from the record and decide only the legal question, under Section 194 together with Section 225.
The case reached the Supreme Court only on a question of law. The court held that under Section 194 together with Section 225 it had to accept the facts as determined by the trial court and the Court of Appeal Region 7 from the evidence in the record, and then examined the legal issues concerning attempted murder and firearms offenses on those settled facts.
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Supreme Court Judgment No. 9798/2555 (2012)
The principle that a court deciding a law-only appeal must accept the facts found from the record applies by reference to specialized courts through Section 194.
On appeal from the Central Intellectual Property and International Trade Court, the Supreme Court held it had to accept the facts found by that court from the record, applying that court's establishing statute together with Section 194. It then decided the legal issues, including the effect of the defendant's change of plea to guilty on the consumer-protection charge, on those settled facts.
Curated decisions with case numbers verified against the Supreme Court database. English renderings are the firm's editorial translation for study.
Cited in 24 Supreme Court decisions (1946 to 2019)
Selected citing decisions
- Decision 9798/2555 (2012)
- Decision 9797/2555 (2012)
- Decision 6433/2543 (2000)
- Decision 3224/2542 (1999)
- Decision 14/2542 (1999)
- Decision 7299/2541 (1998)
- Decision 1547/2519 (1976)
- Decision 1447/2519 (1976)
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
- Thai Penal Code s. 91 9
- Thai Penal Code s. 78 8
- Section 225 7
- Thai Penal Code s. 83 7
- Thai Penal Code s. 29 6
- Thai Penal Code s. 33 5
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
Can the Court of Appeal re-examine the facts in a law-only criminal appeal?
No. Under Section 194, when an appeal raises only a question of law, the Court of Appeal must accept the facts as found by the trial court from the record and decide only the legal issue.
Does this rule also apply when a case reaches the Supreme Court on law?
Yes. Through Section 225, the same principle applies to law-only petitions, so the Supreme Court also decides the legal point based on the facts already established by the lower courts.
Related guides on ThaiLawOnline
Cite this section
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Plain citation
Criminal Procedure Code, s. 194 (Thailand) -
Academic citation
Criminal Procedure Code (Thailand), s. 194. ThaiLawOnline, https://www.thailawonline.com/thai-criminal-procedure-code/section-194/ (accessed 11 August 2026). -
Thai citation
ป.วิ.อ. มาตรา 194 -
Permalink
https://www.thailawonline.com/thai-criminal-procedure-code/section-194/ -
Embed on your site
<blockquote cite="https://www.thailawonline.com/thai-criminal-procedure-code/section-194/"><p>If the appeal is only on a question of law, then in deciding such question of law the Court of Appeal must accept the facts as already determined by the Court of First Instance from the evidence in the record.</p><footer>Criminal Procedure Code, s. 194 (Thailand) — <a href="https://www.thailawonline.com/thai-criminal-procedure-code/section-194/">ThaiLawOnline</a></footer></blockquote>
The Thai text is authoritative. The English is an unofficial translation by ThaiLawOnline, free to reuse with attribution.