Section 170: Disobeying a court summons or order
Statutory text (Thai original)
ผู้ใดขัดขืนหมายหรือคำสั่งของศาลให้มาให้ถ้อยคำ ให้มาเบิกความหรือให้ส่งทรัพย์หรือเอกสารใดในการพิจารณาคดี ต้องระวางโทษจำคุกไม่เกินหกเดือน หรือปรับไม่เกินหนึ่งหมื่นบาท หรือทั้งจำทั้งปรับ หมายเหตุ: [อัตราโทษ แก้ไขเพิ่มเติมโดยมาตรา ๔ แห่งพระราชบัญญัติแก้ไขเพิ่มเติมประมวลกฎหมายอาญา (ฉบับที่ ๒๖) พ.ศ. ๒๕๖๐]
English translation
Whoever disobeys a summons or order of a court to appear to give a statement, to appear to testify, or to deliver any property or document in the trial of a case shall be liable to imprisonment not exceeding six months, or a fine not exceeding ten thousand baht, or both.
This English translation is provided for reference only and has not yet been firm-verified. Always rely on the Thai original.
Firm annotation
Section 170 protects the trial process by penalising defiance of a court's own summons or order. Its elements are: (1) a summons or order of a court; (2) requiring a person to appear to give a statement, to testify, or to deliver property or a document in the trial; and (3) disobedience of it. The offence is directed against the court as a judicial official, and the Supreme Court has repeatedly held that the protected interest belongs to the court directly, not to any private litigant. A private party who suffers only indirect inconvenience from the disobedience, such as delay or wasted service costs, is not the injured person under the Criminal Procedure Code and cannot bring a private prosecution under this section. It sits alongside Sections 168 and 169, which cover disobedience of prosecutors and inquiry officials rather than of the court.
Why this matters in practice
Exposure is up to six months, and in practice enforcement of the section is a matter for the court, not for the opposing party. The most consequential rule, confirmed by the Supreme Court, is standing: because the offence is committed against the court directly, a private litigant is not the injured person and cannot prosecute a witness or party who ignored a court summons or order to produce documents or money. Anyone actually facing this liability is usually a witness or third party who ignored a subpoena, and the safer course is to attend and raise any objection before the court rather than simply not comply. If you have received a court order to testify or produce documents, understand what to expect at court and, if in doubt, seek legal advice.
Supreme Court decisions interpreting this section
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Supreme Court Judgment No. 2768/2522 (1979)
Section 170 penalises a person who disobeys a court order to deliver documents in a trial; it is directed at conduct against the court as a judicial official specifically. A private plaintiff is not the person directly injured by such conduct and therefore has no standing to prosecute under this section.
The Court explained that Section 170 protects the court directly when a person disobeys an order to produce documents in a trial. Because the offence is against the court and not against the opposing litigant, the private plaintiff was not the directly injured person and lacked standing to prosecute.
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Supreme Court Judgment No. 2046/2533 (1990)
Where a person disobeys a court order to remit attached money to the court, any loss suffered by the opposing litigant is not a direct loss caused to a legal right of that litigant; the parties owe no duty to one another in this respect, so the litigant is not the injured person under the Criminal Procedure Code and cannot prosecute under Section 170.
A party disobeyed a court order to send attached money to the Civil Court. The Court held that the plaintiff's loss was not a direct violation of the plaintiff's own right, since the litigants had no reciprocal duty on the point, so the plaintiff was not the injured person and had no standing to prosecute under Section 170. The decision confirms that this offence protects the court, not the opposing party.
Curated decisions with case numbers verified against the Supreme Court database. English renderings are the firm's editorial translation for study.
Cited in 7 Supreme Court decisions (1968 to 2004)
Selected citing decisions
- Decision 2046/2533 (1990)
- Decision 2768/2522 (1979)
- Decision 1880/2516 (1973)
- Decision 454/2512 (1969)
- Decision 238/2547 (2004)
- Decision 323/2520 (1977)
- Decision 1522/2511 (1968)
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
Can a private party prosecute someone who ignored a court summons?
No. The Supreme Court has held that the offence under Section 170 is committed against the court directly, so a private litigant is not the injured person and has no standing to bring the prosecution.
What is the penalty under Section 170?
Imprisonment not exceeding six months, or a fine not exceeding 10,000 baht, or both.
Related guides on ThaiLawOnline
Cite this section
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Plain citation
Penal Code, s. 170 (Thailand) -
Academic citation
Penal Code (Thailand), s. 170. ThaiLawOnline, https://www.thailawonline.com/thai-penal-code/section-170/ (accessed 17 August 2026). -
Thai citation
ป.อ. มาตรา 170 -
Permalink
https://www.thailawonline.com/thai-penal-code/section-170/ -
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<blockquote cite="https://www.thailawonline.com/thai-penal-code/section-170/"><p>Whoever disobeys a summons or order of a court to appear to give a statement, to appear to testify, or to deliver any property or document in the trial of a case shall be liable to imprisonment not exceeding six months, or a fine not…</p><footer>Penal Code, s. 170 (Thailand) — <a href="https://www.thailawonline.com/thai-penal-code/section-170/">ThaiLawOnline</a></footer></blockquote>
The Thai text is authoritative. The English is an unofficial translation by ThaiLawOnline, free to reuse with attribution.