Legal and judicial system

Deputy Prime Minister Sok An has a stunning portfolio of positions within the CPP government. On Monday, CPP lawmakers once again appointed Mr. An as the Cabinet Minister for Prime Minister Hun Sen. He is also the chairman of the state-controlled Cambodian National Petroleum Authority and ...

Nearly half of defendants lack legal representation, 80 per cent are held in pretrial detention, and a sizeable chunk confess before they get a hearing, according to an online public database released yesterday by the Cambodia Center for Human Rights. The database reveals numerous infringements on ...

Sok Sam Oeun and Born Samnang left Prey Sar prison’s Correctional Center 1 on Thursday for the last time, putting behind them an ordeal that has lasted nearly a decade during which they were wrongfully imprisoned for a total of five years each for the ...

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 ...

Born Samnang and Sok Sam Oeun, the men wrongfully sentenced to 20 years in prison for the 2004 murder of Free Trade Union (FTU) leader Chea Vi­chea, were exonerated Wednesday by the Supreme Court of the crime. Responding to the acquittal, Chea Vichea’s brother, Chea Mony, ...

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 ...

Three officials from Ratanakkiri’s O’Yadav district were charged on September 10 for threatening and intimidating a villager after he filed a lawsuit related to the corrupt sale of community land in 2011, according to a letter obtained by the Post yesterday. Romas Svang, 47, of Yatung commune, received ...

Cambodia’s Supreme Court ordered the release of two men Wednesday who were wrongly convicted and jailed for the 2004 murder of a prominent opposition activist. The court’s decision to drop all charges came amid renewed calls to free the men, whom leading international rights groups have ...

The Appeal Court has reduced the already shortened sentence of the 31-year-old son of a high-ranking official who killed three women in a car accident, ordering him to serve just two months in prison, a court official said Tuesday. Bun Rattanak, the son of municipal finance ...

The former director of a Vietnamese-owned rubber firm was sentenced in absentia to two and a half years in prison by the Phnom Penh Municipal Court on Monday, and ordered to pay $800,000 in compensation for defrauding his former employer, a court official said yesterday. “The ...

Rights groups and the United Nations yesterday urged the Supreme Court to drop the case against two men widely believed to have been wrongfully convicted of the slaying of unionist Chea Vichea when it convenes this morning. Born Samnang and Sok Sam Oeun were re-arrested in ...

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 Court of Appeal has reduced to six months the original three-and-a-half-year prison term handed to the son of a wealthy businessman for pistol-whipping a man and damaging restaurant property. Duong Udomchorvin, 24, was sentenced in May, along with his 17-year-old brother, Duong Kimlong, who was ...

Norwegian energy firm Eltek on Thursday demanded $5 million it is owed from bankrupt telecommunications company Mfone by the end of October and blamed the court and the government for stalling payment. During a meeting at Mfone’s headquarters in Phnom Penh’s Boeng Keng Kang III commune, ...

The case of a Battambang provincial government official ac­cused of embezzling some $200,000 in state funds has been referred to the Anti-Corruption Unit in Phnom Penh, provincial officials said Thursday. Battambang Provincial Court deputy prosecutor Long Hokmeng said a two-week investigation into the case brought against ...

A Kampong Speu judge released the vice-president and a member of the Free Trade Union on bail yesterday after the court questioned the two about their alleged roles in a violent demonstration at Sabrina Garment factory. ...

The Siem Reap Provincial Court charged three men Wednesday with illegally logging luxury rosewood inside the Angkor Archaeological Park, a Unesco world heritage site, officials said. Provincial prosecutor Heng Pheng said the suspects had been identified as Sun Phearak, 20, Phay Sophea, 18, and Phin Ron, ...

The Phnom Penh Municipal Court on Tuesday charged six men with assault and destruction of property for their role in clashes Sunday night between security forces, protesters and angry commuters, which resulted in a 29-year-old construction worker being shot dead. Sanh Samoeun, 28; Nguyen Thi Dek, ...

More than 50 supporters of jailed anti-eviction activist Yorm Bopha marched through central Phnom Penh on Tuesday to demand her speedy retrial, acquittal and release, visiting the Supreme Court, the Royal Palace and the European Union and World Bank offices. Ms. Bopha has consistently professed ...

A group of 12 ethnic minority villagers in Ratanakkiri province have filed a complaint with the provincial court over what they claim is collusion between other villagers and local authorities to illegally log luxury timber from 193 hectares of land inside a community forest. The Prov ...

The National Election Committee (NEC) on Monday said that a host of senior ruling party officials had resigned from their elected posts in Parliament in order to allow lawmakers lower down the party’s rostrum of candidates to be given a seat in the National Assembly. “The ...

One year ago today, Hang Serei Odom, a journalist in Ratanakkiri province, received a fateful phone call. After telling his wife he was going to meet a military police officer, he bid her goodnight. He left his house in Banlung City at about 7 p.m. ...

Roughly 100 rubber farmers in Ratanakkiri province’s O’Chum district blocked National Road 78A on Wednesday, demanding that authorities take action against a pair of laborers they accuse of stealing resin from their land. The laborers—Math Las, 40, and his wife, Nos Yas, 38—who are reportedly employed ...

Phnom Penh Municipal Hall yesterday defended the actions of police and security guards who blocked protesters as they tried to leave the capital’s Boeung Kak area before they stopped and searched an NGO’s vehicle. Dozens of Daun Penh district police, security guards and military police blockaded ...