Laws and regulations

The Royal Palace yesterday said the letter sent by opposition leader Sam Rainsy to King Norodom Sihamoni last week that elicited a furious response from the government for “insulting” the King, did not, in fact, disrespect the monarch’s “honour and name”. A statement signed by the ...

The building that housed USA Fully Field Garment factory in Phnom Penh’s Meanchey district stands empty now. The grounds are littered with garbage and boxes full of dusty brand labels that were stitched onto clothes by almost 400 workers before the factory owner fled in ...

Facing public pressure from major garment brands and labor unions, the Ministry of Labor and the International Labor Organization (ILO) will cooperate in the coming months to reform the current system of setting the minimum wage in the garment sector. The reform process will begin with ...

A draft law meant to improve the maintenance and construction of Cambodia’s dilapidating roads was passed yesterday in a one-sided session of the National Assembly that saw ruling party lawmakers lambast Public Works and Transport Minister Tram Iv Tek for his allegedly poor stewardship. ...

Ruling party members continued to meet at the National Assembly on Wednesday, discussing a draft law on roadways despite a boycott by the opposition. The opposition Cambodia National Rescue Party has refused to participate in the new government, following 2013 elections it says were marred by ...

Police in Preah Vihear province say they have uncovered more evidence of child labor on a Chinese-owned sugarcane plantation and will send the case to court if further investigation confirms their preliminary findings. A former employee of the Lan Feng plantation filed a complaint last month ...

Siem Reap Provincial Court on Wednesday charged four soldiers from the Royal Cambodian Armed Forces (RCAF) with illegally logging rosewood and placed them in pre-trial detention, an official said. “We charged them under article 96 of the Forestry Law,” said Hok Pov, an investigating judge at ...

The number of road fatalities in Cambodia rose to 576 in the first three months of the year, up from three percent over the same period last year. Preap Chan Vibol, director of Transport Department at the Public Work and Transportation Ministry, attributed the high ...

Senior opposition lawmaker Mu Sochua walked into Phnom Penh’s Freedom Park on Wednesday morning, trailed by a small group of news photographers, and stopped to pose in front of about 100 municipal riot police exercising in the park. Ms. Sochua’s small act of defiance against the ...

Pailin Provincial Court on Wednesday charged four villagers with infringing on public property because they cultivated 684 hectares of land that the court says belongs to the state, but which villagers claim to have farmed legally since 1999, a rights worker said. The villagers were arrested ...

Villagers involved in a long-running land dispute with a company alleged to be owned by Pailin Governor Y Chhien were arrested Monday for failing to heed an order from Mr. Chhien to vacate the disputed land, rights workers said. Pich Sothea, 47, Orm Sam Ath, 44, ...

Interior Ministry spokesman Khieu Sopheak said yesterday that the government will not let opposition leader Sam Rainsy dodge a government ban on public gatherings by holding mass demonstrations during the campaign period before the May 18 district, provincial and city council elections. ...

Garment worker unions have tangled with factory owners over the unions’ plan to use the coming Khmer New Year holiday to launch a nationwide strike. A coalition of eight unions will send a letter today to the Garment Manufacturers Association in Cambodia (GMAC) stating that workers ...

Police raided a guesthouse in Poipet City on Monday and arrested 23 men as they waited to be paid for illegally logging rosewood across Cambodia’s border with Thailand, police officials said. Um Sophal, Poipet City police chief, said the men were arrested Monday following a tip-off ...

Ethnic Jarai villagers in Ratanakkiri province have once again accused the Vietnamese owners of a rubber plantation of illegally logging their ancestral forests in a complaint filed with rights group Adhoc. A district official, however, said the plantation owner, Company 72, was granted an extension on ...

The National Social Security Fund (NSSF) on Monday launched an initiative to provide health insurance to the nation’s workforce, a plan that the country’s largest employers’ associations said was premature. NSSF director Ouk Samvithya said that by the middle of this year, enterprises in the country ...

The Cambodian government says it has no plans so far to carry out a lawsuit against the opposition for damages from violent demonstrations in January. The Ministry of Interior has released a report, claiming $72 million in public and private damages, including to 95 different factories, ...

Phnom Penh Municipal Court on Friday summonsed three senior leaders of Cambodia’s largest independent garment union for questioning over claims they embezzled money meant to be paid to workers in compensation following an industrial dispute, a court official has said. ...

Local conglomerate Royal Group said Tuesday that while it is committed to its partnership with Australia-based ANZ bank, it would entertain selling its stake in ANZ Royal Bank for “a very high offer.” “The Royal Group would like to clarify that it is a strong and ...

A senior Education Ministry official on Thursday said that jailing students caught cheating, as threatened by the Anti-Corruption Unit (ACU) on Tuesday, was the wrong approach to cleaning up the national high school exam. Instead, he called for a budget increase to offset losses that teachers ...

Prime Minister Hun Sen has signed a sub-decree to better regulate pharmacies, a business fraught with fake drugs and fake diplomas. The new sub-decree of the Pharmacists’ Code of Ethics contains 71 articles. They ban distribution of fake drugs and the use of titles not ...

A government committee charged with assessing damage from the garment worker protests in December and January has put the value of the destruction at over $250,000. It places blame squarely on the opposition CNRP and a trio of union leaders. That committee’s report, released Thursday, ...

The director of the Lumphat district forestry department in Ratanakkiri province was charged and put in pre-trial detention on Monday for allegedly logging on protected land around Ou’Sinlair waterfall, police and court officials revealed yesterday. Deputy Police Chief Klol Thoeun said that Meung Bunthin was picked ...

An official with the government’s Anti-Corruption Unit (ACU) said Tuesday that staff there were specifically instructed not to investigate allegations of large-scale bribery inside the Health Ministry so that the unit could settle the case out of court. On Sunday, ACU chief Om Yentieng told reporters ...