Having helped his powerful client avoid a jail term on a lese majeste charge last month, former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra’s trusted lawyer failed to repeat the feat this month.
Winyat Chatmontree successfully defended Thaksin against accusations of insulting the monarchy, winning a Criminal Court case on August 21.
However, on September 9, the Supreme Court ordered his client to serve a commuted one-year prison term, ruling that his six-month hospital stay did not count as time served.
Winyat is the longtime lawyer for the Shinawatras, Thailand’s most powerful political dynasty, trusted to defend the family and their red-shirt supporters in court.
He has managed to win multiple legal battles stemming from their political conflicts over the past two decades.
The lawyer has represented Thaksin, the family’s patriarch, in high-profile cases where Thailand’s future hung in the balance.
He also served as legal adviser to Thaksin’s sister, Yingluck Shinawatra, handling similar cases from her tenure as prime minister before her government was ousted in the 2014 military coup.
As a member and lawyer for the Thaksin-controlled Pheu Thai, he represented the party and its key figures – including former PM Srettha Thavisin – in a series of legal battles.
He quit Pheu Thai three years ago but continued to represent Thaksin.
Winyat also earned a name as “the red-shirt lawyer”, advising and defending the movement’s leaders and followers in multiple civil and criminal cases since its birth two decades ago.
Thaksin’s loyal red-shirt movement launched as the Democratic Alliance against Dictatorship (DAAD) in 2007 to counter the yellow-shirt People's Alliance for Democracy (PAD), whose mass protests against then-PM Thaksin paved the way for his ouster in the 2006 military coup.
The DAAD transformed into the United Front for Democracy against Dictatorship (UDD) in 2009, after Thaksin’s proxy, the People’s Power Party, was disbanded by court order, and the rival Democrat Party formed a new coalition government.
No plan to become lawyer
Born in the northeastern province of Buri Ram to a middle-class family, Winyat earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees in law from Ramkhamhaeng University.
In a 2022 interview, he said that his ambition while studying law in the early 1990s was to become a public prosecutor or judge.
However, during his university years, voluntary work in deprived rural communities inspired a desire to help those in need.
After graduating, he worked as a trainee lawyer while studying at the Institute of Legal Education for his Thai Bar licence – a requirement to become a judge or prosecutor.
Winyat said his parents wanted him to aim higher than just being a lawyer.
In 1997, Winyat helped the Constitution Drafting Assembly in rewriting Thailand’s supreme law.
The CDA held public hearings, allowing him to hear input from various groups of people promoting reforms and a people-oriented charter.
“While training as a lawyer and working under the CDA, I realised that as a judge or public prosecutor, you could ’t help many people. That’s when I decided I wanted to become a lawyer,” he said.
Winyat said social inequality and the lack of opportunities for rural people fuelled his desire to become a full-fledged lawyer, despite low earnings to begin with.
He added that working as a lawyer allows him “more freedom to think and work” than serving as a judge or a prosecutor.
Proud ‘red-shirt lawyer’
He began practising law full-time in 1998, working on criminal, civil and intellectual property cases.
But he was roused by a sense of injustice when Thaksin’s elected government was deposed by the military in 2006.
“I didn’t join the anti-coup protests, but decided to oppose coups in my role as a lawyer. I decided to help people affected by power seizures,” Winyat said in 2022.
He shifted his focus to political cases in 2007 when he became a legal adviser to the red-shirt movement.
Winyat said he shared the red-shirt leaders’ opposition to social injustice and military coups.
He became one of several so-called “red-shirt lawyers” representing UDD leaders in criminal cases stemming from street protests between 2007 and 2010, when the group grew to become a formidable political power.
Winyat said he was proud to serve the red shirts and did not see it as a stigma or blot on his career.
The lawyer added he was glad to help them secure justice in “unfair legal cases” brought by the state.
“Being a lawyer for the red shirts triggered political attacks against me. But I proved that the red shirts fought by the rules.”
After the 2014 coup, Winyat served as a lawyer for several junta critics accused of various criminal offences, including lese majeste.
