Section 28: Payment of fine to court

Supreme Court decisions interpreting this section

1. Supreme Court Judgment No. 5252/2559 (2016)

   Enforcing a fine is an exercise of state power in the criminal justice process, not the collection of a civil debt. Neither the court nor the public prosecutor is a creditor of the defendant, and a fine is not a debt within the bankruptcy law, so even where the defendant is under an absolute receivership order the fine may be enforced against its property under Sections 28 and 29 without filing a claim with the official receiver.

   The public prosecutor applied to have the first defendant's bank account attached so that the fine imposed by the judgment could be paid to the court. The official receiver objected that, the company being under an absolute receivership order, any recovery had to be claimed from the estate under sections 27, 91 and 94 of the Bankruptcy Act B.E. 2483. The Supreme Court disagreed. Once the case was final it was for the court to enforce the fine under section 245 paragraph one of the Criminal Procedure Code, and the prosecutor could compel payment in full: a criminal fine is an exercise of public power and is not subject to the Bankruptcy Act, so no claim had to be filed with the receiver.

Curated decisions with case numbers verified against the Supreme Court database. English renderings are the firm's editorial translation for study.