Section 104: Petty offences require no intention
Statutory text (Thai original)
การกระทำความผิดลหุโทษตามประมวลกฎหมายนี้ แม้กระทำโดยไม่มีเจตนาก็เป็นความผิด เว้นแต่ตามบทบัญญัติความผิดนั้นจะมีความบัญญัติให้เห็นเป็นอย่างอื่น
English translation
A petty offence under this Code is an offence even if committed without intention, unless the provision defining that offence provides otherwise.
This English translation is provided for reference only and has not yet been firm-verified. Always rely on the Thai original.
Firm annotation
Section 104 is a key exception to the general rule in Section 59 that a person is criminally liable only when acting intentionally, or negligently where the law so provides. For the minor class of petty offences, the prosecution does not need to prove intention; the wrongful act alone suffices unless the defining provision expressly requires a particular state of mind. This reflects the regulatory character of petty offences, many of which concern public order and minor nuisances. The exception is itself qualified: where the text of a specific petty offence indicates otherwise, that specific wording controls.
Why this matters in practice
In practice this makes petty offences much harder to defend on a lack-of-intent argument: telling the court that you did not mean to break the rule usually will not defeat the charge. Because the penalties are minor and many petty offences are compoundable or settled with a fine, the practical question is often whether the conduct falls within the definition at all, rather than whether it was intentional. Where a specific petty-offence section does list a mental element, however, that requirement must still be met, so the exact wording of the charging section should always be checked.
Cited in 15 Supreme Court decisions (1997 to 2026)
Selected citing decisions
- Decision 506/2569 (2026)
- Decision 1750/2568 (2025)
- Decision 1343/2567 (2024)
- Decision 2420/2565 (2022)
- Decision 7627/2541 (1998)
- Decision 1491/2540 (1997)
- Decision 6092/2564 (2021)
- Decision 4912/2566 (2023)
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 78 15
- Section 91 11
- Section 162 11
- Section 29 8
- Section 30 8
- Thai CrPC s. 195 7
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
Do I need intent to be guilty of a petty offence in Thailand?
No. Under Section 104 a petty offence is committed even without intention, unless the specific section defining the offence requires a particular state of mind.
Is Section 104 an exception to the general intent rule?
Yes. It is an exception to the principle that criminal liability requires intention or negligence, applying only to the minor class of petty offences and only where the offence text does not say otherwise.
Cite this section
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Plain citation
Penal Code, s. 104 (Thailand) -
Academic citation
Penal Code (Thailand), s. 104. ThaiLawOnline, https://www.thailawonline.com/thai-penal-code/section-104/ (accessed 21 August 2026). -
Thai citation
ป.อ. มาตรา 104 -
Permalink
https://www.thailawonline.com/thai-penal-code/section-104/ -
Embed on your site
<blockquote cite="https://www.thailawonline.com/thai-penal-code/section-104/"><p>A petty offence under this Code is an offence even if committed without intention, unless the provision defining that offence provides otherwise.</p><footer>Penal Code, s. 104 (Thailand) — <a href="https://www.thailawonline.com/thai-penal-code/section-104/">ThaiLawOnline</a></footer></blockquote>
The Thai text is authoritative. The English is an unofficial translation by ThaiLawOnline, free to reuse with attribution.