OPINION

Deluding themselves

Re: "Ministry seeks cabinet nod for registration of illegal workers," (BP, Dec 28).

I wonder how the Interior Ministry thinks it can register illegal migrant workers now when it has so miserably failed to do so in the past. Employers hire illegal workers for a variety of reasons, including to circumvent onerous registration and documentation requirements, avoid paying full legal wages and social welfare benefits, and dodge worker health and safety standards. Such motivations will not go away simply because the ministry has now given the green light to register undocumented workers.

Unless employers are severely penalised for hiring undocumented workers, nothing will change.

I would readily sign a petition calling on the prime minister to "bounce the jail bird" or one calling on him to locate the Red Bull brat ("Let's rise together", PostBag, Dec 31) and so, I am sure, would tens of thousands of others. And many other petitions addressing social ills, for that matter.

But I confess to not being highly computer literate and do not know how to use change.org.

If Burin Kantabutra would be kind enough to take the lead, I am sure we could fill his petitions with signatures in next to no time.

Let's make 2021 a better year for everyone. Happy New Year.

Re: "6 top cops shunted after raid," (BP, Dec 30).

Six top policemen, including Division 2 commissioner Pol Maj Gen Pattana Phetsayanawin, have been transferred to inactive posts while the Royal Thai Police probes if they were complicit in the operations of an illegal casino at Soi Chaeng Watthana 14 or why it was able to operate without their knowledge.

The investigators should also find out why Google Maps lists 10 casinos in Rayong, not just the raided one.

Such a transfer is standard procedure to prevent interference with the investigation but I've never heard of the results of such a probe, or what happened to those who are guilty.

Are the investigations just to fool the public, or are they effective in punishing the guilty?

This raid is a golden opportunity for new top cop, Pol Gen Suwat Jangyodsuk, to show his reformist credentials -- have a prompt, in-depth investigation, incorporating the suggested reforms of the Khun Vicha Mahakun commission.

If the defendants are innocent, make all evidence public and reinstate them.

If there are grounds for charges, promptly, publicly and fairly court-martial them. Let justice not only be done, but be seen to be done.

And let such transparent, prompt, fair investigations become the new norm.