Prosecutor’s Appeal and the Injured Party’s Subsequent Private Prosecution After Dismissal of the Public Case
Issue of Prosecutor’s Appeal and the Injured Party’s Subsequent Private Prosecution After Dismissal of the Public Case
In a criminal case, the public prosecutor filed a complaint against the accused, and Mr. Muang, as the injured person, was admitted by the court as a co-prosecutor. During the trial, Mr. Muang realized that the prosecutor’s complaint lacked certain essential elements of the alleged offence and therefore submitted a motion seeking amendment and supplementation of the complaint. The court did not issue any order on that motion, but instead rendered judgment dismissing the case. Thereafter, the public prosecutor filed an appeal against the dismissal. Mr. Muang did not join in the appeal; rather, he filed a new private criminal complaint based on the same cause of action.
If sitting as the appellate court, the proper order would be to accept the public prosecutor’s appeal for consideration, but to dismiss or refuse the new complaint filed by the injured person. This is because the latter constitutes a duplicate action arising out of the same matter while the original case remains pending on appeal. Such subsequent filing is therefore barred as a prohibited overlapping suit under Section 173 paragraph two (1) of the Civil Procedure Code, as applied to criminal proceedin