Section 327: Defamation of a deceased person
Statutory text (Thai original)
ผู้ใดใส่ความผู้ตายต่อบุคคลที่สาม และการใส่ความนั้นน่าจะเป็นเหตุให้บิดา มารดา คู่สมรส หรือบุตรของผู้ตายเสียชื่อเสียง ถูกดูหมิ่นหรือถูกเกลียดชัง ผู้นั้นกระทำความผิดฐานหมิ่นประมาท ต้องระวางโทษดังบัญญัติไว้ในมาตรา ๓๒๖ นั้น
English translation
Whoever imputes anything to a deceased person before a third person, where the imputation is likely to cause the father, mother, spouse or child of the deceased to lose reputation, to be insulted or to be hated, commits the offence of defamation and shall be liable to the punishment provided in Section 326.
ThaiLawOnline translation, written from the Thai original and verified
Firm annotation
Section 327 extends criminal defamation to imputations against a deceased person. Its distinctive element is that the imputation must be likely to damage the reputation of, or expose to insult or hatred, a defined class of surviving relatives: the father, mother, spouse or child of the deceased. The provision does not protect the reputation of the dead as such; it protects those close survivors, who are the injured persons entitled to complain. Everything else, including the requirement of communication to a third person, follows Section 326, and the punishment is that laid down in Section 326. Section 328 can aggravate the offence where committed by publication, and Section 333 makes it compoundable.
Why this matters in practice
Only the listed relatives (father, mother, spouse or child of the deceased) can be the injured persons, so a more distant relative or the deceased's estate cannot bring the complaint. The claim depends on showing the imputation reflects on those survivors, not merely on the dead person. The offence is compoundable under Section 333 and carries the same exposure as Section 326, or up to two years if published under Section 328. Truth and good-faith defences under Sections 329 and 330 apply as they do to ordinary defamation.
Cited in 1 Supreme Court decisions (1978 to 1978)
Selected citing decisions
- Decision 2280/2521 (1978)
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.
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 you defame a dead person under Thai law?
Section 327 does not protect the reputation of the deceased directly. It makes it an offence where the imputation is likely to harm the reputation of the deceased's father, mother, spouse or child, and those relatives are the injured persons.
Who can file a complaint for defaming a deceased person?
Only the father, mother, spouse or child of the deceased who is affected by the imputation may complain. More distant relatives are not covered by Section 327.
Related guides on ThaiLawOnline
Cite this section
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Plain citation
Penal Code, s. 327 (Thailand) -
Academic citation
Penal Code (Thailand), s. 327. ThaiLawOnline, https://www.thailawonline.com/thai-penal-code/section-327/ (accessed 17 August 2026). -
Thai citation
ป.อ. มาตรา 327 -
Permalink
https://www.thailawonline.com/thai-penal-code/section-327/ -
Embed on your site
<blockquote cite="https://www.thailawonline.com/thai-penal-code/section-327/"><p>Whoever imputes anything to a deceased person before a third person, where the imputation is likely to cause the father, mother, spouse or child of the deceased to lose reputation, to be insulted or to be hated, commits the offence of defamation and shall be…</p><footer>Penal Code, s. 327 (Thailand) — <a href="https://www.thailawonline.com/thai-penal-code/section-327/">ThaiLawOnline</a></footer></blockquote>
The Thai text is authoritative. The English is an unofficial translation by ThaiLawOnline, free to reuse with attribution.