Law and judiciary

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 ...

About 30 law students on Friday participated in the seventh Client Counseling Competition to put their newly acquired professional skills into practice and compete for a trip to the international competition in Puerto Rico in April. “We created the case based on this year’s theme, ...

In anticipation of today’s scheduled Municipal Court verdict for six men facing charges of violence and property damage in connection with a September clash on Phnom Penh’s Kbal Thnal overpass, rights groups yesterday called for their acquittal. A statement from Human Rights Watch (HRW) released yesterday ...

A man who intended to release birds at Freedom Park yesterday as a way of calling for those wrongfully imprisoned to be freed was himself detained on the way to the ceremony, rights group Adhoc said. The man, identified as Pheakdey, 35, was among nine people ...

The bodies of a 39-year-old woman and her 18-month-old nephew were recovered Thursday two days after a riverbank collapse caused their home in Kandal Province’s Khsach Kandal district to plunge into the Mekong River while they slept, but the woman’s 3-year-old son has not yet ...

The total number of serious and minor crimes in Cambodia increased by 1 percent, or 27 cases, in 2013 compared to the previous year, while Phnom Penh’s crime rate rose by 62 percent, a report released by the Interior Ministry on Tuesday says—laying the blame ...

A 41-year-old prisoner died of a heart attack in Prey Sar prison’s Correctional Center 1 on February 15, but only after he spent more than two hours stuck in his overcrowded cell waiting for medical treatment, his fellow prisoners allege. CC1 administrator Khuth Vuthy, who confirmed ...

Officials from the ministries of interior, social affairs, and justice met with NGOs on Friday to discuss the latest draft of a juvenile justice law that has been in the works for more than a decade and which would mean young offenders’ rights would be ...

Police and friends of Canadian journalist and screenwriter Dave Walker are searching for the Edmonton man after he mysteriously vanished on Feb. 14 in Cambodia. The 58-year-old left the Green Village Angkor Guesthouse in the tourist city of Siem Reap about 2 p.m. with only his ...