Law and judiciary

The deputy prosecutor at the Phnom Penh Municipal Court has laid provisional charges against a military general arrested in Takeo province on Thursday, according to a senior military police official, in a high-profile case linked to corruption claims that led to the sacking this week ...

The ruling CPP, which has long used election-time generosity as a central campaign strategy, proposed a rule that would ban vote-buying on Friday during ongoing bipartisan talks to write a new election law. ...

Although the number of migrant workers who crossed to Thailand through the Poipet International Border Checkpoint decreased slightly from 2013 to 2014, the number of people who died while working in Thailand appeared to increase, a provincial official said this week. ...

Opposition party defector Van Sam Oeun yesterday slammed reports that his recent move to the ruling Cambodian People’s Party was due to alleged bankruptcy and that he had been “bought” by Prime Minister Hun Sen. ...

Thousands of garment workers at one Phnom Penh factory, and about 100 more at another, protested Thursday over the new minimum wage set for the garment sector late last year, upset that those already earning higher salaries were overlooked. ...

Military police in Takeo province last night arrested a military general and close aide of ousted Phnom Penh Municipal Court director Ang Mealaktei, who was officially removed from his position Wednesday amid allegations of vast corruption. ...

Three mothers say they fear their sons are being coerced into fabricating molestation accusations against a man they know as the patron saint of Phnom Penh’s riverside but who police and child-protection activists say is a predator. ...

In the highest-profile sacking since Prime Minister Hun Sen promised to rid the government of corruption after the CPP’s shock losses in the July 2013 election, the Phnom Penh Municipal Court’s chief judge was removed this week amid claims that millions of dollars had reversed ...

Three of the country’s largest unions on Wednesday added their voices to a global campaign urging member states of the International Labor Organization’s (ILO) Governing Body, which Cambodia recently joined, to not revoke the option to go on strike as a fundamental right. ...

Thailand’s army has asked Cambodia “not to jump [to] the conclusion” that its soldiers were to blame for the deaths of three Cambodian loggers who were shot dead earlier this month while searching for rosewood across the border, according to Thai media. ...

Former Phnom Penh Municipal Court director Ang Mealaktei, who was ousted Tuesday amid claims of corruption at the court, was granted a new position in the Ministry of Justice during the ceremony to replace him on Wednesday. ...

The Labor Ministry official in charge of garment factory faintings declared Wednesday’s reopening of a Svay Rieng province factory—where 100 workers fainted in the past week due to chemical fumes—a relative success, with only three more women collapsing while working. ...

A senior Phnom Penh Municipal Court official has been accused of threatening a Singaporean businessman in an attempt to pressure him into confessing to a crime he did not commit. ...

Plans to bring the raucous 10-day rave Kazantip to Cambodian shores were in tatters Wednesday as hundreds of Russian revelers showed up at the bridge leading to Koh Puos island to find the way blocked by a 2-meter-high metal barricade. ...

The Ministry of Interior on Wednesday said it was standing by its decision to not renew the visa of outspoken environmental activist Alejandro Gonzalez-Davidson in the face of mounting pressure from fellow activists, NGOs, unions, students and monks—even opposition leader Sam Rainsy—to reverse course. ...

Authorities in Preah Sihanouk province have had yet another change of heart about the notoriously wild Kazantip music festival, pulling the event from Sihanoukville’s Koh Puos island for a second time, with one official citing a desire to dissuade “indecent tourism.” ...

Phnom Penh Municipal Court director Ang Mealaktei was removed from his position on Tuesday pending an investigation into rampant corruption at the court since he became its chief judge less than a year ago. The decision was made public hours after Prime Minister Hun Sen criticized ...

A year after a Vietnamese man was caught trying to mail teddy bears stuffed with the drug precursor chemical pseudoephedrine to Australia from Phnom Penh, he appeared in court on Tuesday over another alleged drug smuggling scheme. ...

Prime Minister Hun Sen on Tuesday has proposed the Supreme Council of Magistracy to take urgent measure on a judge responsible for releasing parents of fugitive Thong Sarath on bail. ...

The chief judge at Phnom Penh Municipal Court has replaced, in a shake-up at the behest of Prime Minister Hun Sen, as the court pursues an ongoing murder investigation. Hours after Hun Sen’s order, the chief of Phnom Penh’s court, Ang Maldey, was fired and ...

Five men were sentenced to 10 years in prison by the Phnom Penh Municipal Court yesterday for selling nearly 1 kilogram of crystal methamphetamine to undercover police officers in the capital’s Tuol Kork district last April. ...

In an unanticipated act of leniency yesterday, Prime Minister Hun Sen established a new committee to deliver pardons to mothers jailed with their children, according to several attendees of the conference where the announcement was made. ...

CNRP spokesman Yem Ponhearith said on Monday that he plans to summon four government ministers to parliament to determine whether a remote area of Kampot province’s Bokor Mountain used for prayer ceremonies by Vietnamese tourists could be turned into a Cambodian cultural site. ...

The appropriate scope of a controversial proposed ban on NGOs “insulting” political parties in election campaigns on Monday continued to divide the CPP and CNRP during talks to amend the nation’s election law, with the negotiating teams deciding to pass the issue on to their ...