Section 114: Preparation for insurrection
Statutory text (Thai original)
ผู้ใดสะสมกำลังพลหรืออาวุธ ตระเตรียมการอื่นใด หรือสมคบกันเพื่อเป็นกบฏ หรือกระทำความผิดใด ๆ อันเป็นส่วนของแผนการเพื่อเป็นกบฏ หรือยุยงราษฎรให้เป็นกบฏ หรือรู้ว่ามีผู้จะเป็นกบฏ แล้วกระทำการใดอันเป็นการช่วยปกปิดไว้ ต้องระวางโทษจำคุกตั้งแต่สามปีถึงสิบห้าปี
English translation
Whoever accumulates forces or arms, makes any other preparation, or conspires to commit insurrection, or commits any offence forming part of a plan to commit insurrection, or incites the populace to commit insurrection, or, knowing that a person is to commit insurrection, does any act to conceal it, shall be punished with imprisonment of three to fifteen years.
This English translation is provided for reference only and has not yet been firm-verified. Always rely on the Thai original.
Firm annotation
Section 114 criminalises the preparatory stage of insurrection, before the use or threat of force required by Section 113 has occurred. Its acts include accumulating forces or arms, procuring or gathering property, giving or receiving combat or weapons training, or any other act done to prepare for causing the disturbance in Section 113. By punishing preparation with three to fifteen years, the Code reaches conduct that would otherwise fall short of the completed insurrection offence, and it is narrower and lighter than Section 113 itself. In practice it is often charged alongside firearms and war-weapons offences under the arms legislation where weapons are stockpiled.
Why this matters in practice
Like Section 113, this is an offence against the State, so the State is the sole injured party and prosecution rests with the public prosecutor rather than any private complainant. The penalty exposure of three to fifteen years is serious, and where arms are involved, additional charges under the firearms and war-weapons laws commonly follow. The central issue is usually whether the acts of gathering people, arms, funds or training were genuinely done to prepare for the insurrection aims in Section 113, as opposed to a lawful or unrelated purpose.
Supreme Court decisions interpreting this section
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Supreme Court Judgment No. 734/2520 (1977)
Possessing and stockpiling war weapons for the purpose of separating the Kingdom or jointly seizing governing power over part of the Kingdom is charged as preparation for insurrection under Section 114.
The prosecution alleged that the defendants possessed war weapons, including many rocket launchers, machine-gun ammunition and anti-aircraft gun mounts, for the purpose of separating the Kingdom or jointly seizing governing power over part of it, and charged them under Section 114 together with the firearms and war-weapons legislation. The case illustrates how the accumulation of arms with an insurrectionary aim is prosecuted as preparatory conduct under this section, alongside the arms offences.
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Supreme Court Judgment No. 2857/2530 (1987)
Offences against internal security under Sections 113, 114 and 116 injure the State alone, so a private person, even a member of parliament, has no standing to prosecute.
The public prosecutor charged the defendants under Sections 113, 114 and 116. The court held these internal-security offences are committed directly against the State, so only the State is the injured party with power to prosecute. A member of parliament acting as complainant was not an injured person under the Criminal Procedure Code and lacked standing.
Curated decisions with case numbers verified against the Supreme Court database. English renderings are the firm's editorial translation for study.
Cited in 5 Supreme Court decisions (1977 to 2018)
Selected citing decisions
- Decision 734/2520 (1977)
- Decision 2857/2530 (1987)
- Decision 2788/2545 (2002)
- Decision 15705-15706/2557 (2014)
- Decision 1688/2561 (2018)
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 83 5
- Section 91 3
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
What does Section 114 punish?
It punishes preparatory acts for insurrection, such as accumulating forces or arms, gathering property, or giving or receiving combat or weapons training to prepare for the disturbance in Section 113, with three to fifteen years imprisonment.
How does Section 114 differ from Section 113?
Section 113 punishes the actual use or threat of force for insurrection with death or life imprisonment, while Section 114 punishes the earlier preparatory stage with a lighter three-to-fifteen-year term.
Cite this section
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Plain citation
Penal Code, s. 114 (Thailand) -
Academic citation
Penal Code (Thailand), s. 114. ThaiLawOnline, https://www.thailawonline.com/thai-penal-code/section-114/ (accessed 17 August 2026). -
Thai citation
ป.อ. มาตรา 114 -
Permalink
https://www.thailawonline.com/thai-penal-code/section-114/ -
Embed on your site
<blockquote cite="https://www.thailawonline.com/thai-penal-code/section-114/"><p>Whoever accumulates forces or arms, makes any other preparation, or conspires to commit insurrection, or commits any offence forming part of a plan to commit insurrection, or incites the populace to commit insurrection, or, knowing that a person is to commit insurrection, does any act…</p><footer>Penal Code, s. 114 (Thailand) — <a href="https://www.thailawonline.com/thai-penal-code/section-114/">ThaiLawOnline</a></footer></blockquote>
The Thai text is authoritative. The English is an unofficial translation by ThaiLawOnline, free to reuse with attribution.