Legal and judicial system

A jubilant crowd of opposition supporters burst into cheers yesterday afternoon as seven Cambodia National Rescue Party lawmakers-elect and one party activist were released on bail just hours after an announced rapprochement between the CNRP and the ruling Cambodian People’s Party. They walked free through exits ...

A Cambodian court on Tuesday afternoon released seven opposition party lawmakers-elect and one party activist on bail after the ruling and opposition parties reached a political agreement. “The eight politicians were released from Phnom Penh’s Prey Sar prison at 4:45 p.m. after questioning judge Keo Mony ...

Forest activists accused of destroying private property told a court hearing in Kampong Thom province yesterday that they were acting to protect mainland Southeast Asia’s largest evergreen forest from illegal logging. ...

Despite multiple requests, the US Embassy has not been given access to visit dual citizen Mu Sochua since her arrest last Tuesday, officials said yesterday. “Consular officers attempted to visit Mu Sochua the evening she was arrested but were not permitted to see her and multiple ...

After more than half a year with only one acid attack recorded in Cambodia, police in Banteay Meanchey’s Poipet town are at a loss to explain an incident yesterday in which three women were allegedly doused with the chemical while eating noodles at a local ...

Three reporters and a publisher were arrested in two separate cases of attempted extortion in Stung Treng and Kratie provinces on Sunday after stopping vehicles suspected of carrying illegally logged timber, according to local authorities. Mom Mon, 54, and Kim Noeun, 28, reporters for the Sangkum Khmer and ...

About 200 people from Ponhea Leu district protested outside the Kandal provincial court Monday as questioning began of residents summoned last month in an ongoing land dispute. The court summoned 12 villagers on June 30, shortly after Phanimex Development company filed a complaint against the families, ...

Nine environmental activists on trial for the destruction of private property in Kompong Thom province denied allegations in court Monday that they ravaged a local farmer’s cassava field in 2011. The nine members of the Prey Long People’s Network, a group of activists dedicated to protecting ...

The Phnom Penh Municipal Court has rejected a request from two former members of the Coalition of Cambodian Apparel Workers’ Democratic Union (CCAWDU) to have the union’s president be forced to step down as he is investigated for embezzlement. Former CCAWDU officials Oum Visal and Roeun ...

Thursday while a court summoned its deputy chief for questioning following violent clashes when party supporters tried to force the reopening of Freedom Park in the capital. Elected members of parliament Nut Rumduol and Long Ry were taken into custody by policemen in plain clothes from ...

About 100 CNRP activists and supporters gathered Thursday at Prey Sar prison to put pressure for the release of five opposition lawmakers and another supporter who are under detention. Policemen were seen guarding around the Prey Sar prison to prevent the protesters from approaching the site, ...

The Phnom Penh Municipal Court on Wednesday charged at least seven opposition CNRP lawmakers-elect and a party activist with insurrection and incitement over a protest that turned violent on Tuesday, sending six of the group to Prey Sar prison. Meng Sopheary, a lawyer on the defense ...

International legal experts are expressing deep concern over proposed changes to Cambodia’s legal system that critics say hand over too much power to the executive.  At a meeting in Phnom Penh Tuesday, a group recommended the three judicial reform laws should be returned to parliament ...

United Nations rights envoy for Cambodia Surya Subedi on Wednesday urged all sides to immediately exercise utmost calm and restraint in the wake of alarming reports of violence following opposition protests in Phnom Penh on Tuesday. “Democracy depends on respect, not violence,” he said in a ...

A Cambodian court charged six opposition activists on Wednesday with leading an insurrection after clashes with security forces prevented their followers from rallying in a public park, deepening a yearlong political crisis after a disputed election. Lawyers and rights activists said six leading members of the ...

The opposition Cambodia National Rescue Party (CNRP) on Tuesday called for the authority to release its three lawmakers arrested in a violent clash at the Freedom Park. The CNRP also expressed its regret over the violent clash between district security forces and protesters who demand ...

Employees of the Ocean Garment factory in Phnom Penh’s Pur Senchey district continued to protest Monday against management’s decision to ignore an Arbitration Council ruling on owed wages. Cheng Chhorn, secretary general of the Collective Union of Movement of Workers, said the workers will march to ...

A group of civil society organizations will petition King Norodom Sihamoni today, calling on the king to withhold his signature from three judicial laws that they say will entrench the ruling CPP’s control of the courts and jeopardize citizens’ constitutional freedoms. Despite concern raised by local ...

A Mondulkiri military police officer has been charged with intentional murder after allegedly shooting and killing a man who ignored an order to stop his car while passing through a protected forest in the province’s O’Raing district, Mondulkiri provincial prosecutor Khout Sopheang said yesterday. ...

A company owned by the wife of Mines and Energy Minister Suy Sem forged ahead with its construction of a concrete wall around a swath of disputed land in Kompong Chhnang province Friday, despite a call from the U.N.’s human rights envoy on Thursday that ...

Nearly four years after it was established by the Commerce Ministry and one year on from its official launch, the National Commercial Arbitration Center (NCAC) held its first annual assembly Friday. The NCAC was set up in 2010 to provide businesses with an alternative to the ...

Thailand’s military coup has reoriented Thai-Cambodian relations with surprising effects. Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen’s overt enmity and confrontation towards Thailand over the past several years have become conciliatory and accommodating for the time being. Whether this new pattern of bilateral ties is solidified depends ...

United Nations Special Rapporteur for human rights Surya Subedi has called on politically connected development company KDC International to halt its project in Kampong Chhnang province. Following violent clashes between KDC security guards and protesters on Monday, Subedi released a statement yesterday that calls on all ...

Rival factions in the increasingly bitter dispute over land in Phnom Penh’s Boeng Kak neighborhood filed lawsuits against each other at the Phnom Penh Municipal Court yesterday over a clash late last month. The two sides, in what once was a unified front against the neighborhood’s ...