The Krabi Provincial Court has ruled that the Agricultural Land Reform Office (Alro) did not have the authority to disperse 55 villagers as they were not dependents of a palm oil company which was previously issued with the eviction order.
Since the 55 people from Surat Thani's Klong Sai Pattana community were not "dependents" of the evicted company, the court said the Krabi Alro could not enforce their eviction.
Alro won a Supreme Court case last year to evict Jiew Kang Jue Pattana, a palm oil company, from the area for illegally occupying land but Alro has tried to evict the residents as well. The office also accused the villagers of being "dependents" of the company and filed a lawsuit to evict them from the land they had been collectively cultivating for the past eight years.
Lawyer Nutshatthayakorn Gunthana said in a phone interview that the ruling was in favour of the villagers who have been fighting the lawsuits and other intimidatory tactics. "The company must be evicted due to the previous Supreme Court order but the authorities can't seem to be bothered about it. The villagers are the ones who were sued," said Ms Nutshatthayakorn.
Despite the court victory, she was concerned that Alro could adopt its special power under Section 44 of the interim charter to seize back the land based on the National Council for Peace and Order's (NCPO) July 5 order regarding measures to address the illegal occupation of agricultural reform land aimed at seizing 432,765 rai within 129 days.
Thiranet Chaisuwan, a core member of the Southern Peasants Federation of Thailand (SPFT), told the Bangkok Post that the possible adoption of Section 44 would affect the community despite the favourable court ruling.
"We have to go to Bangkok again to convince the authorities that we are not the 'influential figures' that have to be evicted under Section 44," he said.
"We are working hard to resolve the dispute with Alro, which has been recognised by the current and past governments, so they should refer to the current mechanism instead of forcing us out," said Mr Thiranet.
In May, the SPFT brought several killings and attempted killings against their community members since 2010 to the attention of the UN Human Rights Council at the Universal Periodic Review in Geneva.