Thai court to rule on election winner’s bid to change royal insults law

A Thai court will on Wednesday rule on whether an opposition party plan to amend a law against insulting the monarchy is unconstitutional, in what could set a precedent for future moves to change one of the world’s strictest lese majeste laws.
Move Forward, the biggest party in parliament, won last year’s election on a progressive platform that included a once unthinkable proposal to amend the lese majeste law, which carries penalties of up to 15 years in jail for each perceived insult of Thailand’s powerful crown.
In a country where reverence for the monarch has for decades been promoted as central to national identity, the law, under which at least 260 people have been prosecuted in the past few years, is seen by many royalists as sacrosanct.
Move Forward’s plan outraged conservatives and saw the party’s attempt to form a government torpedoed by lawmakers allied with and appointed by the royalist military.