Law and judiciary

The owners of 170 factories have handed power of attorney to the nation’s factories association ahead of a potential lawsuit directed at the leaders of six union groups. Garment Manufacturers Association in Cambodia (GMAC) secretary-general Ken Loo said yesterday that the factories would seek damages related ...

Marking the next step to the Kingdom’s resumption of international adoptions, the Ministry of Social Affairs distributed for the first time copies of all adoption-related prakases, or edicts, to international representatives and adoption agencies in the capital yesterday. ...

One year ago today, ex-Bavet town governor Chhouk Bandith smiled as he sat before a judge at the Appeal Court in Phnom Penh on the first day of his trial for shooting and badly injuring three unarmed garment workers at a protest in Prey Veng ...

Armed soldiers will continue to patrol Veng Sreng Street, the garment factory-lined thoroughfare in Phnom Penh’s Pur Senchey district where military police shot dead five workers during a nationwide strike last month, until labor unrest in the garment sector subsides, the deputy commander of the ...

The International Finance Corporation’s compliance ombudsman has officially accepted a complaint filed by ethnic minority families in Ratanakkiri province against the IFC for investing in rubber plantations accused of stealing land and clearing forests. In a letter sent to the families on Monday, the ombudsman deems ...

Three villagers in Mondulkiri’s Sen Monorom district appeared in court yesterday after filing a complaint against a land concessionaire for illegally bulldozing community forest. The three represented more than 160 Phnong villagers in allegations that the provincial deputy governor’s company cleared 30 hectares of community forest ...

Seven pre-Angkorian temples have been discovered on two land concessions in Preah Vihear province, but while an Environment Ministry official said Tuesday that the ministry had no knowledge of the temples when they granted the concessions, the Culture Ministry said their existence had long been ...

Environment Minister Say Sam Al is scheduled to visit Koh Kong province today, while a representative of Chinese-owned company Union Development Group said the minister is expected to pay a visit to their 45,000hectare land concession, which has been the cause of a long-running land ...

Garment workers’ calls for a $160 minimum wage are justified and should be honored, a new report by an international team of academics and labor experts has found. The authors—including a team from the University of London’s School of Oriental and African Studies, South Korean and ...

Phnom Penh Municipal Court yesterday convicted and sentenced in absentia a senior official at the Ministry of Public Works and Transport for directing money from employees’ salaries to his own pocket. Seng Setha, 52, general director of the ministry’s administration and human resources department, was sentenced ...

The Phnom Penh governor on Tuesday told city officials to halt corruption and work harder to provide public services in an effort to restore confidence among the people who were so frustrated with the ruling party that they voted for the opposition CNRP in last ...

Over 100 families, who live in Kampong Chhnang, filed complaints against a provincial court judge and his group for allegedly threatening to shoot them in land disputes. The residents sued San Sophat, a judge at Kampong Chhnang Provincial Court, his bodyguard, and Hem Dara, a lawyer, ...

The Chinese-owned Union Development Group in Koh Kong province is bulldozing swaths of its land concession, originally intended for a massive tourist resort, to plant cassava and palm oil trees instead, a CNRP lawmaker-elect said Monday. Son Chhay, lawmaker-elect and CNRP chief whip, visited the area ...

A sand-dredging ferry caught fire and two of its pumping machines exploded yesterday in Kandal’s Kien Svay district. The blast sent a black plume of smoke over the Mekong and caused oil to leak into the river. Yem Sokhum, Phomthom commune police chief, said that according to ...

Representatives for the hundreds of families facing eviction from homes around Phnom Penh International Airport have agreed to let the compliance ombudsman of the International Finance Corporation (IFC), the private investment arm of the World Bank, mediate a solution to the land dispute with the ...

Five families from Oddar Meanchey province’s Samraong district have filed a complaint with district authorities and rights group Adhoc in a bid to reclaim more than 16 hectares of land they allege was sold to other villagers by their village chief without their permission. Adhoc provincial ...

When an ethnic Vietnamese crashed his motorcycle into an ethnic Khmer’s car in Phnom Penh’s Meanchey district last Saturday night, he was attacked by Khmers shouting the racially charged term for Vietnamese — “yuon” — and beaten to death. That an ordinary traffic accident turned into ...

The Minority Rights Organization and the Cambodian Center for Human Rights on Friday condemned the racist mob killing of a 28-year-old ethnic Vietnamese man in Phnom Penh this week, which came after the destruction of Vietnamese shops last month and months of anti-Vietnamese rhetoric from ...

A coalition of 18 labor unions and associations is today set to begin the first phase of a nationwide labor strike in the garment sector by calling on workers in about 100 factories to boycott working overtime, according to union leaders. Despite efforts by the government ...

Every day, five people die in traffic accidents in Cambodia – a number the government is hoping to reduce with a new policy aimed at cutting traffic accidents by 50 per cent in 2020. The National Policy on Road Safety, passed by the Council of Ministers ...

The Court of Appeal on Friday overruled a decision by the Municipal Court ordering the company 7NG Group to provide a total of $195,000 in compensation to 13 families whose houses were destroyed during the violent eviction of the Dey Krahorm community in 2009. “The Court ...

Transparency International (T.I.) Cambodia and education NGOs on Friday held a conference titled “Promoting Integrity to Strengthen the Quality of Education in Cambodia,” where ideas were put forward on stamping out corruption in schools. “We need to mobilize the students themselves in tracking the delivery ...

The Phnom Penh Municipal Court on Friday said it would delay issuing a scheduled verdict against six people tried for intentional violence against police and property damage during an opposition protest on Phnom Penh’s Kbal Thnal overpass in September, saying that the case was very ...

The high-ranking government officials and global clothing brand representatives who took part in a meeting in Phnom Penh on Wednesday both raised concern​s​ about the media coverage of last month’s lethal repression of a nationwide strike by garment workers and its aftermath. The meeting was called ...