Secretary-general of the Association to Protect the Thai Constitution Srisuwan Janya yesterday became the first person to be detained at the Administrative Court after he was sentenced to 14 months in prison and a 700,000-baht fine for contempt of court.
The offence related to an appeal over 14 dismissed lawsuits against the Airports of Thailand (AoT).
While the court suspended his jail term for three years due to Srisuwan's clean record, he was detained there for two hours and only released once his secretary arrived with the money to pay the fine.
Srisuwan will have to serve out his jail term if he offends the court again within the three-year period.
The sentence was handed down after Srisuwan submitted an appeal to the court criticising the Central Administrative Court's acquittal of 14 lawsuits filed against the AoT by residents affected by noise pollution from Suvarnabhumi airport.
Mr Srisuwan, also president of the Stop Global Warming Association, was authorised by residents to file the suits against the agency.
The Supreme Administrative Court ruled the language used in the appeal was mocking and made sarcastic comments about the lower court's judges, who earlier decided to dismiss all of the cases.
The court said Srisuwan did not criticise the court's judicial procedures based on legal or academic information. The message in the appeal was deemed contempt of court as it aimed to satirise, defame and discredit the court, resulting in public contempt.
The court said Srisuwan had been warned about the tone of his language when he lodged the first draft of the appeal.
He promised not to repeat the offence, but failed to keep his word when he submitted the appeal again without revision, it said.
