Law and judiciary

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.   ...

A high school director in Prey Veng province accused of embezzling thousands of dollars was transferred to a new position with the provincial government on Wednesday following a protest by students and teachers. ...

The government was unaware of about half of the residential child care centers operating in four provinces and Phnom Penh prior to a study conducted last year, according to a report released on Thursday. ...

The government’s Anti-Corruption Unit (ACU) on Thursday announced it was launching an official investigation into allegations that deputy opposition leader Kem Sokha made unlawful land and apartment purchases for a mistress. ...

Judge and prosecutors were called to a two-day workshop to address the sector’s pervasive ethics challenges, but legal experts said change could not occur until there were concrete rules, instead of vague moral guidelines. ...

Former residents of Phnom Penh’s Borei Keila community on Wednesday handed petitions to the U.N.’s human rights envoy to Cambodia, requesting that she intervene in their feud with authorities after they were snubbed by City Hall earlier in the day.   ...

Ruling party lawmaker Chheang Vun on Wednesday denied any wrongdoing after using his government position to compel the Ministry of Post and Telecommunications to clear up dangling electrical wires in front of a restaurant he owns. ...

Interior Minister Sar Kheng announced yesterday that his ministry plans to construct a prison capable of holding 7,000 inmates on an 800 hectare plot of land in Pursat province. ...

More than 90 villagers in Stung Treng province on Tuesday rejected compensation packages for the land they will lose to the under-construction Lower Sesan 2 hydropower dam, a local official said. ...

Immigration police arrested a Belgian man in Phnom Penh on Monday for using a forged passport to withdraw nearly $50,000 from Canadia Bank, officials said on Tuesday. ...