Legal framework

The government now requires union leaders to prove that they have no criminal record before registering new branches of their organization, according to a statement from the Ministry of Labor, a decision that comes less than a week before planned nationwide strikes in the garment ...

Promising to dramatically open up the region’s airways, the planned Asean Single Aviation Market (ASAM) will bring with it fierce competition and price wars, experts said yesterday during a seminar on the subject at the Phnom Penh Hotel. The seminar brought representatives from the majority of ...

A spirited debate on human rights in Cambodia was heard in the Australian parliament this week after an opposition Labor Party MP introduced a motion calling on the government to condemn state violence against striking garment workers and ask authorities to release detained protesters. Clare O’Neil, ...

Three judicial reform draft laws will be submitted to the Council of Ministers last this month, justice officials said Wednesday. The draft laws deal with the functions of the courts and the conduct of judges and prosecutors, as well as an oversight body called the Supreme ...

The government will not consult civil society groups on the latest iteration of a draft law that will regulate non-governmental organisations and associations, a senior Interior Ministry official said yesterday. Meas Sarim, deputy director-general of the General Department of Local Administration at the Ministry of Interior ...

The government has no intention of withdrawing its signature from the International Labour Organization’s freedom of association convention, despite calls for it to reconsider its position, a Ministry of Labour spokesman said yesterday. “I don’t think we will withdraw. The prime minister [Hun Sen] has already ...

The Ministry of Labor said Wednesday that the government has agreed on a final draft of a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with Malaysia regarding sending Cambodian maids to work there, but that no timeframe for the signing of the agreement has been set. Following reports of ...

The government can’t seem to agree on whether or not Prime Minister Hun Sen has lifted the ban on the constitutional right to freedom of assembly. Last week, Mr. Hun Sen said in a speech: “I will not prevent [demonstrations] because everyone has equal rights,” which ...

The World Justice Project yesterday ranked Cambodia 91st out of 99 nations and at the bottom of the barrel regionally in terms of its devotion to the rule of law, despite its midlevel performance in terms of providing order and security. In its annual Rule of ...

Two Phnom Penh economic police officers were charged with misappropriation of public funds Tuesday by the municipal court and placed in pretrial detention at Prey Sar prison, according to court staff. Theng Ramy, a clerk for the court’s prosecution office, identified the charged officers as Sok ...

When a group of six unions organized nationwide strikes in December demanding a $160 minimum wage, the opposition CNRP aggressively took up the cause. Opposition leaders rallied support outside factory gates around the country and tens of thousands of garment workers flooded into Phnom Penh’s Freedom ...

Prime Minister Hun Sen told business leaders and government officials Tuesday that he will not tolerate “illegal” labor strikes that harm investment, but avoided judgment on a request to withdraw ratification of a U.N. convention protecting workers’ rights to unionize. Speaking at the 17th Government-Private Sector ...

28 complaints have been filed against labor union leaders who led and allegedly incited protests from December last year to January 5, 2014, said factory representative on Tuesday. ...

Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen reiterated Tuesday that the government would no longer tolerate illegal strikes or demonstrations led by the opposition and its aligned trade unions. Speaking during the 17th Government-Private Sector Forum, the premier said the opposition party and its trade unions have used ...

Prime Minister Hun Sen yesterday called on government bodies, local authorities, international organisations and the private sector to dial back Cambodia’s widespread theft of copyrighted works, like film and music, and encouraged the creation of more original, home-grown cultural works. Copying other countries’ cultural output – ...

Austalian Foreign Minister Julie Bishop has responded to one of her predecessors, Gareth Evans, who accused her of failing to deliver a “robust critique” when she met Hun Sen on February 22 in a Friday op-ed that excoriated Cambodia’s political leaders for abuses. In an interview ...

More than 60 police and military police informed 19 families farming on a plot of land in Pailin province’s Sala Krao district on Saturday that they would have to move as they were growing crops on state land. However, Prak Sophima, provincial coordinator for rights group ...

The Phnom Penh Municipal Court on Friday sentenced three men of six suspects to prison terms for their role in the September 15 clashes on Monivong Bridge between police and stone throwing youths, during which a man was killed and several were wounded by police ...

Two union representatives said that they were detained and “educated” Thursday for distributing leaflets calling on workers to participate in a nationwide strike next month. Yin Saroeun, secretary-general of the National Trade Unions Coalition, said police detained him and his colleague, Chuob Noek, at about 11 ...

The Labor Ministry in a statement Thursday insisted that unions were still free to register as entities recognized by the government, a day after a ministry spokesman said that union registration had been effectively suspended for the foreseeable future. Free Trade Union (FTU) president Chea Mony ...

Police in Kratie province on Wednesday demolished the makeshift tents of about 300 families accused of squatting on public land inside a conservation area, two weeks after they forced many of the same families out of the area. Some of the families say they have lived ...

Cambodian manufacturers are at risk of being blocked from exporting to the United States for using pirated software, IT industry bodies warned yesterday. Speaking at a seminar that was held at the Intercontinental Hotel in Phnom Penh, Michael Mudd, the secretary general of the Asia-Pacific Open ...

Marking the next step to the Kingdom’s resumption of international adoptions, the Ministry of Social Affairs distributed for the first time copies of all adoption-related prakases, or edicts, to international representatives and adoption agencies in the capital yesterday. ...

Armed soldiers will continue to patrol Veng Sreng Street, the garment factory-lined thoroughfare in Phnom Penh’s Pur Senchey district where military police shot dead five workers during a nationwide strike last month, until labor unrest in the garment sector subsides, the deputy commander of the ...