The Office of the Attorney General has come under the spotlight once again, after its prosecutors aired their frustrations over a TV series broadcast on Channel 3.
The series in question is Hai Rak Pi Pak Sa or "Dare to Love", a soap opera which is centred around the work and love lives of several fictitious legal professionals. It received a thumbs-down from public prosecutors, who criticised it for misrepresenting their work and the judicial process.
The OAG's deputy spokesman, Prayut Phetkun, was quoted as saying that the some of the series' contents were "unacceptable", particularly an episode which showed a prosecutor offering a job at the OAG to a woman to woo her. The OAG went as far as asking the series' producers to correct their "mistakes".
The tension eased yesterday after the producers' visited the OAG office to apologise for the supposed misrepresentation. They also promised to run a disclaimer prior to every episode to inform viewers that the characters and plots are a work of fiction.
The episode, pun intended, speaks volume about how seriously the OAG takes its reputation in public. Indeed, public prosecutors shouldn't be wasting their time criticising a soap opera.
When it comes to public image, there are bigger issues that the OAG needs to worry about. It has been under fire over its handling of the infamous hit-and-run case which involved the scion of the Red Bull empire, Vorayuth "Boss" Yoovidhya. The case has raised many questions about the role and function of the OAG, demoralising many prosecutors who have served the country well by upholding justice principles.
Mr Vorayuth, then 27, was charged for the 2012 crash that killed Pol Sgt Maj Wichian Klanprasert, but he fled the country and continues to live comfortably at a swanky flat in London. Meanwhile, charge after charge against him has expired as investigators move at a glacial pace.
Officials had allowed 14 appeal attempts by the culprit's family. But it was the decision by Nate Naksuk, then deputy attorney-general, to drop a charge of reckless driving causing death -- based on "new" evidence which blamed the dead policeman for the crash -- that ignited so much outrage that Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha was forced to establish a committee to investigate the decision.
Led by Vicha Mahakun, a former commissioner of the National Anti-Corruption Commission, the panel in August last year found evidence of intervention by officials, law enforcement agencies, public prosecutors, lawyers and witnesses. Among them reportedly were three prosecutors and several high-ranking police officers.
Some were accused of having a role in changing the car's speed at the time of the fatal crash, and the sudden appearance of new witnesses which resulted in reduced charges against Mr Vorayuth.
Regrettably, there has been no progress of the subsequent internal probe. OAG cited regulatory obstacles to justify the delay, before the National Anti-Corruption Commission (NACC) stepped in last month and launched its own a probe into the case.
This is the kind of image problem that the OAG should be focusing on -- a problem which has been known for a long time that Thais won't quickly forget. Instead of worrying about a soap opera, it should expedite its internal probe on the hit-and-run crash.
Watching fictitious prosecutors err in a TV series won't harm the profession. Learning that the real ones do, however, certainly will.
