Intoxication, social order and the retreat from volition: a comparative analysis of liability in Thailand and Singapore

The hypothesis of this research is that if law is a social fact, and as such socially determined, then in understanding the importance of volition in criminal liability it is instructional to attempt a comparative analysis at the intersection between literalist legal interpretation, and approaches that recognize the political and moral presumptions of culpability—exploring intoxication in its least voluntary context. The idea here is that while the penal codes of both Singapore and Thailand value the proof of volition, political and cultural interpretations tend to see intoxicated persons as morally culpable, and the cause of the intoxication becomes a matter of lesser importance than any dangerous outcomes visited on the community. To add weight to assumption that volition as the precondition for liability has become intensely contingent on social, cultural and political externalities the paper will look at the selected Asian jurisdictions (and their laws and practices in this regard)—one having more ties to continental civil law as well as earlier indigenous foundations and common law influences, the other retaining common law constructs moderated through colonial codification, and both having developed their unique punitive interpretations of factors affecting liability.