Law and judiciary

Twelve years after being ousted as president of the Bar Association of the Kingdom of Cambodia (BAKC) amid a bitter dispute with the prime minister’s attorney, human rights lawyer Suon Visal has been voted back into the lawyer association’s top position. ...

Military police said they arrested a well-known timber trafficker in Stung Treng province on Thursday after she and a group of stick-wielding thugs attempted to retrieve a pile of wood officers had seized a day earlier. ...

Visiting U.N. envoy Rhona Smith on Tuesday offered to help Cambodia draft its first laws on surrogacy, a ministry spokesman said. The special rapporteur on human rights in Cambodia, who arrived on Monday for a 10-day visit, met with Justice Minister Ang Vong Vathana to discuss ...

Three men were detained in Tbong Khmum province on Saturday afternoon for smuggling civets and snakes in the back of a Toyota SUV, possibly with the intention of selling them in neighboring Vietnam. ...

Opposition members of the National Assembly may soon have their pay and expenses docked if they continue their months-long boycott of the sessions. The Parliamentary Permanent Committee is thinking of amending the National Assembly’s internal regulations to include disciplinary articles concerning members who boycott sessions, including ...

Ten pro-government unions on Friday released statements in support of Cambodia’s recently passed Trade Union Law, just days after two independent unions held a meeting to discuss hoped-for changes to the contentious legislation. The independent unions met last week to compile a list of amendments to ...

Almost 30 people were killed and nearly 140 injured in traffic accidents over the five-day Pchum Ben holiday weekend, showing a slight decrease compared with previous years. National deputy police chief Kirth Chantharith said yesterday there were 75 traffic accidents from Wednesday to Sunday which caused ...

China has signed an agreement to assist the Kingdom with judicial reforms and to share expertise in overhauling such systems, though one international expert yesterday cautioned that China shouldn’t be considered “a model for justice reform in Cambodia”. ...

The Cambodian Youth Party (CYP) is urging the public to join a mass demonstration on October 10 against Vietnam, due to what they say is a continued encroachment by the neighboring country on Cambodian territory through two settlements currently under construction. In an announcement sent out ...

From now on, only certain sub-decrees will need to be pored over by the cabinet before they are signed by Prime Minister Hun Sen, the premier told a session of the cabinet on Friday morning, although failing to specify what the selection criteria would be. Mr. ...

It has been five months since the government updated the country on how far along they were with the demarcation process along the border with Vietnam. Yet Prime Minister Hun Sen has an entirely different focus: the border posts slowly being replaced. In a directive sent out ...

The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) is willing to offer assistance in future prison building projects, and in the preparation of prison management policies that are in line with international standards, the National Police website said on Tuesday. According to the website, the ICRC ...

Police have arrested at least five suspects over the past two days in connection to agrenade attack that rattled a Phnom Penh neighbourhood two weeks ago, injuring four people, but officials yesterday remained tight-lipped as to the suspects’ identities and motives. ...

Environmental campaigner and Areng Valley community leader Ven Vorn lost his appeal against his one-year suspended sentence for “collecting forest products without permission” yesterday at the Appeals Court. Judge Kim Danny did not give reasons why the court decided to uphold the March ruling of the ...

The Ministry of Social Affairs yesterday confirmed it would construct a new national facility to rehabilitate child offenders. The news follows a meeting last Thursday when spokesman Touch Channy told attendees that the new centre to detain juvenile offenders would be built following the recent adoption ...

A new paper from the International Criminal Court laying out a shift in focus to crimes linked to environmental destruction and the unlawful dispossession of land has rekindled the debate over whether the court will launch an investigation into a case highlighting land-grabbing in Cambodia. ...

The Interior Ministry is hoping last year’s relative decrease in traffic accidents and deaths during the Pchum Ben holiday is a sign of things to come and asked citizens again this year to drive safely as they crisscross the country to celebrate the holiday. In a ...

A commission of experts will check nearly 50 new Cambodian national ID cards today amid suspicions the card holders do not hold Cambodian nationality after irregularities were found during voter registration in Kandal province earlier this month. Provincial police chief Eav Chamroeun said yesterday afternoon that ...

The government of India announced yesterday that it will give $50,000 to the Extraordinary Chambers in the Court of Cambodia (ECCC), the tribunal tasked with the prosecution of the country’s former Khmer Rouge commanders. “On behalf of the ECCC we would like to express our gratitude ...

After an Interior Ministry spokes­man last week suggested that an investigation into the murder of Kem Ley had been slowed by his wife fleeing the country, the slain analyst’s friends and family on Sunday blasted the government’s slow and secretive response over the past two ...

At least nine police checkpoints on the major entry points into Phnom Penh have been set up ahead of today’s trial of acting CNRP president Kem Sokha, with the opposition claiming supporters were being hindered from attending a party rally. ...

At least three people were injured in a grenade attack on Street 163 in Phnom Penh’s Boeung Keng Kang III commune at about 7:40pm yesterday evening, police said. The victims did not appear to be the intended targets of the grenade, which was tossed under a ...

The Ministry of Labor is preparing to enact regulations that would provide some amount of monetary relief to workers left in the lurch by factory owners who flee the country. The widespread practice has led to a number of months-long protests as more and more factory ...

Prime Minister Hun Sen today leads a delegation of high-level officials to Laos for the start of the 29th ASEAN Summit. The event is considered of special import as it comes in the wake of a July international court ruling that determined the so-called “nine-dash line” ...