Section 84: Instigating another to commit an offence
Statutory text (Thai original)
ผู้ใดก่อให้ผู้อื่นกระทำความผิดไม่ว่าด้วยการใช้ บังคับ ขู่เข็ญ จ้าง วานหรือยุยงส่งเสริม หรือด้วยวิธีอื่นใด ผู้นั้นเป็นผู้ใช้ให้กระทำความผิด ถ้าความผิดมิได้กระทำลงไม่ว่าจะเป็นเพราะผู้ถูกใช้ไม่ยอมกระทำ ยังไม่ได้กระทำ หรือเหตุอื่นใด ผู้ใช้ต้องระวางโทษเพียงหนึ่งในสามของโทษที่กำหนดไว้สำหรับความผิดนั้น ถ้าผู้ถูกใช้ได้กระทำความผิดนั้น ผู้ใช้ต้องรับโทษเสมือนเป็นตัวการ และถ้าผู้ถูกใช้เป็นบุคคลอายุไม่เกินสิบแปดปี ผู้พิการ ผู้ทุพพลภาพ ลูกจ้างหรือผู้ที่อยู่ใต้บังคับบัญชาของผู้ใช้ ผู้ที่มีฐานะยากจน หรือผู้ต้องพึ่งพาผู้ใช้เพราะเหตุป่วยเจ็บหรือไม่ว่าทางใด ให้เพิ่มโทษที่จะลงแก่ผู้ใช้กึ่งหนึ่งของโทษที่ศาลกำหนดสำหรับผู้นั้น
English translation
Whoever causes another person to commit an offence, whether by employing, compelling, threatening, hiring, requesting, or instigating and encouraging, or by any other means, is an instigator of the offence.
If the offence is not committed, whether because the person instigated refuses to act, has not yet acted, or for any other reason, the instigator shall be liable to only one third of the punishment prescribed for that offence.
If the person instigated commits the offence, the instigator shall be liable to punishment as a principal; and if the person instigated is a person not over eighteen years of age, a disabled person, an infirm person, an employee or a subordinate of the instigator, a person in poor circumstances, or a person who is dependent on the instigator by reason of illness or in any other way, the punishment to be imposed on the instigator shall be increased by one half of the punishment fixed by the court for that instigator.
ThaiLawOnline translation, written from the Thai original and verified
Firm annotation
Section 84, in Book 1 within the Title on Principals and Supporters, defines and grades the instigator, the person who sets another in motion to commit an offence. The means are drawn broadly, from employing, compelling and threatening to hiring, requesting, inciting, or any other method, so the essence is causing another's criminal act rather than the particular form of pressure. Liability is graded by result: if the person instigated actually commits the offence, the instigator is punished as a principal, the same as under section 83; but if the offence is not committed at all, whether the person refuses, has not yet acted, or for any other reason, the instigator faces only one third of the penalty. It sits alongside section 85 (public advertisement to commit an offence) and section 86 (supporting), and is read together with section 87 where the person instigated goes beyond the scope of the instigation.
Why this matters in practice
The instigator's exposure turns sharply on whether the offence was actually carried out: full principal-level punishment if it was, but only one third if the instigated person never committed it. That makes proof of the causal link, that the accused's words or pressure caused the other person's act, the heart of both prosecution and defence. Because the instigator can be punished as a principal, ordering or hiring someone to commit a serious crime carries the same weight as doing it personally. Where the person instigated overshot the plan, section 87 limits the instigator's liability to what was instigated, unless the excess was foreseeable.
Supreme Court decisions interpreting this section
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Supreme Court Judgment No. 613/2567 (2024)
Section 84 covers instigating another to commit an offence, such as prosecuting a person for causing another to commit arson under sections 84 and 220.
The decision refers to a related criminal case in which a person was prosecuted, under section 84 read with section 220, for causing another to commit the offence of setting fire to property. The prosecution failed on the evidence, but the case illustrates the form of a section 84 instigation charge.
Curated decisions with case numbers verified against the Supreme Court database. English renderings are the firm's editorial translation for study.
Cited in 336 Supreme Court decisions (1960 to 2025)
Selected citing decisions
- Decision 613/2567 (2024)
- Decision 33/2566 (2023)
- Decision 34/2566 (2023)
- Decision 5076-5079/2566 (2023)
- Decision 8450/2563 (2020)
- Decision 7639/2562 (2019)
- Decision 6653/2562 (2019)
- Decision 5958/2559 (2016)
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 83 289
- Section 91 165
- Section 90 107
- Section 86 97
- Section 78 94
- Section 157 61
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
Is hiring someone to commit a crime punished as seriously as doing it?
Yes, if the crime is committed. Under section 84 an instigator, including someone who hires or requests another, is punished as a principal when the person instigated actually commits the offence.
What if the person instigated never commits the offence?
Under section 84, if the offence is not committed, whether the person refuses, has not yet acted, or for any other reason, the instigator is liable to only one third of the penalty for that offence.
Related guides on ThaiLawOnline
Cite this section
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Plain citation
Penal Code, s. 84 (Thailand) -
Academic citation
Penal Code (Thailand), s. 84. ThaiLawOnline, https://www.thailawonline.com/thai-penal-code/section-84/ (accessed 17 August 2026). -
Thai citation
ป.อ. มาตรา 84 -
Permalink
https://www.thailawonline.com/thai-penal-code/section-84/ -
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<blockquote cite="https://www.thailawonline.com/thai-penal-code/section-84/"><p>Whoever causes another person to commit an offence, whether by employing, compelling, threatening, hiring, requesting, or instigating and encouraging, or by any other means, is an instigator of the offence. If the offence is not committed, whether because the person instigated refuses to act, has…</p><footer>Penal Code, s. 84 (Thailand) — <a href="https://www.thailawonline.com/thai-penal-code/section-84/">ThaiLawOnline</a></footer></blockquote>
The Thai text is authoritative. The English is an unofficial translation by ThaiLawOnline, free to reuse with attribution.