Section 195: Escape from court-ordered medical confinement
Statutory text (Thai original)
ผู้ใดหลบหนีจากสถานพยาบาลซึ่งศาลสั่งให้คุมตัวไว้ ตามความในมาตรา ๔๙ ต้องระวางโทษจำคุกไม่เกินหกเดือน หรือปรับไม่เกินหนึ่งหมื่นบาท หรือทั้งจำทั้งปรับ หมายเหตุ: [อัตราโทษ แก้ไขเพิ่มเติมโดยมาตรา ๔ แห่งพระราชบัญญัติแก้ไขเพิ่มเติมประมวลกฎหมายอาญา (ฉบับที่ ๒๖) พ.ศ. ๒๕๖๐]
English translation
Whoever escapes from a medical facility in which the court has ordered him to be confined under Section 49, 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
The elements are: (1) a court order confining the person in a medical facility under Section 49; and (2) escape from that facility. Section 49 is narrower than it may appear. Where the court passes a sentence of imprisonment, or adjudges a person guilty but suspends the determination or the execution of the punishment, and is of the opinion that the offence was committed in connection with habitual consumption of liquor or addiction to a narcotic drug, it may specify in the judgment that the person must not consume liquor or a narcotic drug for a period not exceeding two years from release or discharge. Only if the person then fails to comply with what the court specified may the court order them to be sent for custody in a medical facility, again for not more than two years. The confinement Section 195 protects is therefore the sanction for breaching a liquor or drugs prohibition, not a general therapeutic alternative to punishment. Section 195 criminalises escaping from it and carries the lightest penalty among the escape offences in this Title (compare Section 190 on escape from ordinary custody).
Why this matters in practice
This is a low-exposure offense (up to six months) tied to a specific court order confining the person to a medical facility under Section 49, so the threshold question is whether a valid Section 49 order was in force. Because the underlying confinement is therapeutic, the person's mental state and capacity may be highly relevant both to the medical order itself and to any defense. Escape is charged separately from the original matter. Anyone whose family member is subject to court-ordered medical confinement should seek criminal law advice in Thailand to understand the conditions and consequences of breach.
Cited in 9 Supreme Court decisions (1987 to 2015)
Selected citing decisions
- Decision 2888/2547 (2004)
- Decision 2751/2544 (2001)
- Decision 4950/2540 (1997)
- Decision 3119/2558 (2015)
- Decision 14273/2556 (2013)
- Decision 7235/2553 (2010)
- Decision 5665/2530 (1987)
- Decision 2636/2548 (2005)
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
What is Section 49 medical confinement?
Section 49 does not give a general power to order medical confinement. Where the court passes a sentence of imprisonment, or adjudges a person guilty but suspends the determination or the execution of the punishment, and is of the opinion that the offence was committed in connection with habitual consumption of liquor or addiction to a narcotic drug, it may specify that the person must not consume liquor or a narcotic drug for up to two years from release or discharge. Only if that direction is then breached may the court order the person to be sent for custody in a medical facility, for not more than two years. Escaping from that confinement is the offence punished by Section 195.
How serious is the penalty under Section 195?
It is the lightest of the escape offenses in this Title: imprisonment not exceeding six months, 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. 195 (Thailand) -
Academic citation
Penal Code (Thailand), s. 195. ThaiLawOnline, https://www.thailawonline.com/thai-penal-code/section-195/ (accessed 6 September 2026). -
Thai citation
ป.อ. มาตรา 195 -
Permalink
https://www.thailawonline.com/thai-penal-code/section-195/ -
Embed on your site
<blockquote cite="https://www.thailawonline.com/thai-penal-code/section-195/"><p>Whoever escapes from a medical facility in which the court has ordered him to be confined under Section 49, shall be liable to imprisonment not exceeding six months, or a fine not exceeding ten thousand baht, or both.</p><footer>Penal Code, s. 195 (Thailand): <a href="https://www.thailawonline.com/thai-penal-code/section-195/">ThaiLawOnline</a></footer></blockquote>
The Thai text is authoritative. The English is an unofficial translation by ThaiLawOnline, free to reuse with attribution.