Law and judiciary

Cambodian officials have not informed Russian authorities about the arrest of a wanted embezzler in Sihanoukville last month, despite apprehending him at their request, Russia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said on Wednesday. ...

Former Capitol Tours bus driver Nan Vanna and labor activist Ros Siphay were released on bail Wednesday, nearly two months after they were arrested for taking part in a demonstration against the company during which protesters were attacked by a mob of angry tuk-tuk drivers. ...

The Ministry of Justice has announced it is unlikely that any Royal pardons granting inmates amnesty or reductions in prison sentences will be given ahead of the Khmer New Year, according to a ministry spokesman yesterday. ...

A relative of Cambodia’s ambassador to South Korea, who was detained on Monday amid a corruption probe, yesterday claimed the envoy was innocent, as the Anti-Corruption Unit reportedly prepared to send the case to court.   ...

The Ministry of Post and Telecommunications has defended the controversial new Telecommunications Law following a biting legal analysis by rights group Licadho, which says the legislation is a veiled tool to silence critics and potentially criminalize private expression. ...

Tensions flared between military police, traffic police and local officials on Sunday over the impounding of cars alleged to have violated the Traffic Law.   ...

The government is considering candidates who are eligible for Royal pardons and sentence reductions ahead of Khmer New Year. Nut Savenea, spokesman for the Ministry of Interior’s General Department of Prisons, said discussions about pardons are ongoing. ...

The National Assembly yesterday passed a contentious trade union law, just hours after a group of pro-union demonstrators and Daun Penh district security guards clashed violently outside. ...

Laos’ military has begun building a base just meters from an undemarcated stretch of its border with Cambodia, sparking protest from Stung Treng provincial authorities, officials said on Sunday.    ...

As the National Assembly finally comes face to face with the draft union law today, it is unclear whether opposition lawmakers will vote against the contentious legislation. Independent trade unions, meanwhile, are planning a protest outside parliament. ...

The Ministry of Interior has ordered National Police to investigate a scam in which unidentified callers claimed to be senior officials at the ministry and the Anti-Corruption Unit (ACU) in an attempt to extort money from district governors, according to a letter issued on April ...

Justice Minister Ang Vong Vathana has called for all provincial court presidents and prosecutors’ offices to appoint spokespeople to answer questions from the public and the media “as soon as possible,” citing rising interest in the judiciary as the reason. ...

Two defrocked monks were handed prison sentences at the Phnom Penh Municipal Court on Friday, with one of them found guilty of drug possession and making a death threat and the other of using fake documents and improperly wearing monks’ robes.   ...

Sleeping in a hammock strung between two tall trees, deep inside Prey Lang forest, environmental activist Phorn Sopheak was startled awake at 1:30 a.m. on Sunday morning when her parked motorbike toppled over onto her body. ...

Protesters from Phnom Penh’s lakeside communities spent an hour facing off with police on Thursday on a road on the former Boeng Kak lake before turning around and taking a different route to the National Assembly, where they demanded an end to the infilling and ...

Security forces on Thursday blocked two mothers and a wife of jailed activists from the environmental group Mother Nature from walking to Prime Minister Hun Sen’s house to protest their family members’ imprisonment, before a representative of the premier’s cabinet chastised them for using the ...

Phnom Penh’s police chief on Thursday blasted his subordinates for doing an inadequate job of controlling weapons issued to officers, and announced that police had begun a “weapons census” in an effort to deal with the problem.   ...

A village chief and his assistant accused of fraudulently selling 2 hectares of state-owned forest in Pursat province have been arrested and sent to the Veal Veng district Forestry Administration headquarters. ...

One man is missing and presumed dead, and there are concerns about an oil slick of unknown size after a Kampuchea Tela oil tanker crashed into a jetty belonging to the company at Sihanoukville. ...

Speaking via video-link at a ceremony on Wednesday marking the 19th anniversary of the 1997 grenade attack in Phnom Penh, self-exiled opposition leader Sam Rainsy announced that a French court had re-opened an investigation into the deadly attack he has long blamed on Prime Minister ...

Representatives of employers from Cambodia’s industrial sector called for changes to the contentious draft union law yesterday. They criticized the government’s enforcement of strike regulations while requesting changes to the law that include higher thresholds for forming unions and more powers for dissolving unions. ...

The Ministry of Interior and the Ministry of Labor have imposed new regulations and legal conditions on foreign investment and businesses in Cambodia, with the ministries requiring foreign-owned companies to file correct legal papers and to strictly follow Cambodia’s immigration and labor laws, including foreign ...

Phnom Penh’s hell-raising street racers will enjoy a structured outlet for their love of motorbikes at a new amateur racing cup on Koh Pich island this weekend, a competition also meant to promote compliance with the new traffic law. ...

The Anti-Corruption Unit on Thursday dismissed a complaint filed by a Cambodian NGO against the local arm of the international humanitarian group ActionAid for allegedly embezzling $3 million, the unit’s chairman said.   ...