Legal and judicial reform

The government needs to do more to protect migrant workers, ensure that women have access to legal aid, bring cases of violence against women to court and draft an anti-discrimination law, the U.N. Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women (Cedaw) said in a ...

More than two decades after the Paris Peace Agreement, which was meant to open the way for peace and multiparty democracy in Cambodia, legal experts and hu­man rights advocates said Tuesday the government has largely abandoned the vision of the accord. Speaking at a conference on ...

Anti-Corruption Unit (ACU) chief Om Yentieng on Wednesday told donor countries to keep their noses out of how the institution goes about its work while at the same time informing the public that he was powerless to stop the courts from dropping corruption cases. In a ...

A clerk at the Banteay Meanchey Provincial Court was arrested Tuesday on suspicion of corruption and bribe-taking, police and Anti-Corruption Unit (ACU) officials said, but rights groups said clerks alone are not in a position to determine the course of court cases and that more ...

Opposition leaders Sam Rainsy and Kem Sokha joined dozens of monks and hundreds of supporters on Monday for a Pchum Ben ceremony at the memorial stupa in Phnom Penh honoring the 16 people who were killed by a grenade attack on an opposition rally in ...

A coalition of 30 NGOs on Friday called on the Government to draft and pass a freedom of information law to overthrow its “culture of secrecy”. The groups said Saturday is the 10th Right to Know Day, but that Cambodians are being denied a “fundamental human ...

After spending 2,073 days in prison, Born Samnang and Sok Sam Oeun were exonerated on Wednesday by the Supreme Court of having killed popular union leader Chea Vichea in 2004. Legal expert Sok Sam Oeun of the Cambodian Defenders Project said that although the two ...

The Cambodian government has privately pledged that it will pass the long-awaited “three fundamental laws” aimed at reforming the judiciary during the first session of parliament in early 2014, UN rights envoy Surya Subedi said. The laws – which focus on codifying the court’s jurisdiction, laying ...

During an epic speech on Wednesday that lasted for more than six-and-a-half hours, Prime Minister Hun Sen told his newly approved Cabinet that they would be subject to increased public scrutiny as part of a series of reforms to be undertaken by the CPP over ...

U.N. human rights envoy Surya Subedi on Wednesday wrapped up his appearance before the Human Rights Council in Geneva with a vow to continue assisting Cambodia in improving its judicial system as NGOs provided withering testimony of the situation of rights in the country. A dialogue ...

Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen on Wednesday announced his new government’s five-year strategy, vowing to deepen reforms in all fields to ensure sustainable growth and poverty reduction. “Reforms are the top priority for Cambodia and the country will continue deepening reforms in all fields in order ...

The atmosphere in Phnom Penh 20 years ago today was one of jubilation and optimism as then-Prince Norodom Sihanouk signed Cambodia’s new Consti­tution into law and reclaimed the throne as King. The promulgation of the Constitution—which marked the end of the U.N. Transitional Authority in Cambodia’s ...

The judiciary has signed off on a new set of guidelines designed to regulate the work of prosecutors in many areas, including the rights of minors in the judicial system. Ouk Savuth, general director of the Court of Appeal, signed off on the guidelines on August ...