Legal framework

Despite opposition party hopes to the contrary, the Ministry of Justice yesterday rejected the idea that it could intervene in the court system to release Meach Sovannara, a Cambodia National Rescue Party official jailed last week. According to ministry spokesman Kem Santepheap, a letter from CNRP ...

King Norodom Sihamoni officially appointed new members to the judicial body that oversees the Kingdom’s judges and prosecutors last week, following the passing of a controversial law earlier this year outlining its organisation and functioning. According to a Royal Decree that was signed Thursday by the ...

Deputy Prime Minister and Interior Minister Sar Kheng received a letter from Sam Rainsy who called for the release of Meach Sovannara, head of CNRP’s information and media department, and will send the letter to the Ministry of Justice, a senior official said Friday. ...

The Appeal Court has set a date to hear the case of 23 garment workers and unionists who were convicted in May in connection with violent protests calling for a doubling of the sector’s minimum wage.​ ...

Following days of high-profile convictions and charges dealt at breakneck speed, based on little evidence and little investigation, a prominent legal expert said yesterday that the law “needs to be updated” to change Cambodia’s widely decried court system. ...

The Cambodian government is carrying out a new wave of arrests of opposition party and social activists. Cambodia’s donors should speak out against the government’s harassment, arbitrary detention, and summary trials of peaceful protesters and the government should end the crackdown. The crackdown has ...

Civil society groups have condemned the arrest, detention and conviction of seven Boeung Kok land activists, following their protests earlier this week outside Phnom Penh City Hall. Phnom Penh Municipal Court on Tuesday charged them with the violation of traffic law by blocking a public ...

The Cambodia’s Phnom Penh Municipal Court on Wednesday convicted four additional protesters of obstructing public officials and sentenced each of them to one year in prison, a rights group said. The four convicts were arrested on Tuesday while joining a protest in front of the ...

The Kompong Cham Provincial Court on Wednesday released five factory workers on bail three weeks after they were charged with instigating violence and destroying property during a protest that turned violent at the Juhui Footwear factory late last month, according to their lawyer. Clashes at the ...

Police arrested another opposition activist Thursday morning for his alleged involvement in the violent July 15 protest at Freedom Park that the courts have labeled an attempted insurrection, a party official and police said. Tep Narin, a CNRP activist in his 30s, was arrested at the ...

A Cambodian court on Tuesday sentenced seven female land rights activists, including a 75-year-old woman, to one year in prison each for blocking traffic during a protest. Judge Mong Mony Sophea of Phnom Penh Municipal Court ruled the women were guilty of “creating a public ...

Opposition leader Sam Rainsy will meet with leaders of ruling party soon to seek release of a senior official. The arrest of Meach Sovannara is politically motivated and it needs to be politically intervened, said a party spokesman Yim Sovann. ...

The Cambodia’s Phnom Penh Municipal Court on Wednesday convicted seven Vietnamese nationals of procuring prostitution and sentenced them between six and ten years in prison, according to a verdict pronounced by Judge Kor Vandy. ...

Meach Sovannara, an official from the opposition CNRP, was arrested while driving down Monivong Boulevard in Phnom Penh on Tuesday morning, according to police and another CNRP official. Mr. Sovannara, who is also the director of the opposition Khmer Post Radio, was arrested in accordance with ...

The Ministry of Information yesterday announced a three-year public consultation period on a new access to information draft law that has been in the works since 2007. But freedom of information advocates greeted the news with scepticism, citing a lack of representation from civil society on ...

More than 100 demonstrators continued to stage an anti-eviction protest in front of Koh Kong province’s city hall after a jailed community leader was denied bail yesterday. ...

Since a nationwide census of foreigners began in August, fines totalling nearly $200,000 have been paid into government coffers, an immigration official told the Post yesterday. “According to the law, the immigration police can fine them 200,000 riel [about $49] to 500,000 riel and this ...

An attorney for five people arrested after a violent protest at a Kampong Cham shoe factory said yesterday he is waiting for the court to issue a decision on a bail request he filed on Friday. ...

The Phnom Penh Municipal Court on Wednesday will charge six construction workers and a company manager in connection with a building site accident that killed a woman on Sunday, while work on the site has been suspended on government orders, officials said Tuesday. ...

Two outspoken critics of Cambodia’s Prime Minister Hun Sen are to be dragged to court this month on vague charges of “incitement to commit a crime,” but the defendants say they have done nothing illegal. Prominent activist monk Luon Sovath received a summons dated Oct. 22 ...

Two Vietnamese women were sentenced yesterday by Phnom Penh Municipal Court to two-and-a-half years in prison each for trafficking five Vietnamese women to have sex with wealthy men in a hotel. ...

The National Assembly yesterday appointed a ruling Cambodian People’s Party stalwart to fill the final seat of the judicial body that oversees the Kingdom’s judges and prosecutors and whose political independence is already a target of criticism. A majority of 66 parliamentarians voted Ith Rady, an ...

Siem Reap Provincial Court summoned a provincial councillor and his oknha wife in for questioning last week after two businessmen filed a complaint accusing them of fraud amounting to $60,000. ...

Ethnic Tumpoun residents from Ratanakkiri’s Banlung district sent petitions to authorities yesterday to protest plans to erect a Buddha statue at Yeak Loam Lake, saying it will bring bad luck to their villages. ...