Legal framework

The spokesman for the Interior Ministry, Kiev Sopheak, said that there are still ghost workers in government offices, even though the Anti-Corruption Unit cracked down on this practice last year. ...

Three members of the Free Trade Union on Thursday filed complaints against members of a rival union for allegedly beating them with bamboo sticks and banana tree branches during a clash outside Phnom Penh’s SH International garment factory on Wednesday morning. ...

Immigration police arrested 36 illegal Vietnamese immigrants Thursday morning during coordinated raids of 18 furniture shops in Phnom Penh’s Chamkar Mon district, an immigration official said. ...

Thirteen months after Cambodia’s largest ever haul of ivory was seized at the Sihanoukville Autonomous Port, the chief of customs on Wednesday appeared before the provincial court to answer questions about the case for the first time. ...

A Cambodian senior police officer confirmed Wednesday that Chinese economic fugitive Sun Xin, 46, and a former cashier of the Beijing municipal bureau of press, had worked in a factory in west Cambodia’s Kampong Speu province for six years before being arrested and sent back ...

An updated version of the draft Trade Union Law gives the Labor Ministry the power to suspend unions that “cooperate” or hold joint activities with groups the government deems to have caused economic sabotage or “damaged” the national interest, according to a copy of the ...

An NGO umbrella group says it has seen a new, leaked copy of a controversial draft law that aims to regulate the country’s hundreds of non-government organizations—and that the latest version marks a significant step backward. ...

Armed Vietnamese soldiers on Monday tried to prevent more than 300 people led by CNRP lawmakers from visiting a disputed border area in Ratanakkiri province’s O’Yadaw district, a lawmaker and a rights worker said. ...

Police in Siem Reap province delayed sending seven suspects accused of running a ponzi scheme to court Monday on the order of a prosecutor, who said the director of the company behind the scheme would be appearing today to “guarantee them.” ...

A handcart-puller who was knocked unconscious by military police during a May 26 protest in Poipet City—sparking an attack on the local customs office—on Friday filed a court complaint requesting $10,000 in compensation from his attackers, a rights monitor said Sunday. ...

Russian businessman Nikolai Doroshenko was released from prison in Sihanoukville over the weekend after the Supreme Court granted him bail due to his poor health, more than two months after he was jailed on charges related to a dispute with his recently deported investment partner, ...

The Cambodian government is trying to weather criticism over the lack of transparency concerning the proposed draft law on NGOs that is now in the hands of the National Assembly. But another important draft law regulating trade unions is being heavily criticized for violating international ...

Cambodia is refusing protection for almost 100 Montagnard asylum seekers fleeing persecution in Vietnam as four refugees travel from Nauru to the impoverished nation under a controversial $55.5 million agreement with Australia. ...

Following the intervention of Indonesia’s ambassador to Cambodia last week, 10 Indonesian nationals left the country Sunday after being released by police in Kandal province, where they were being held over a $161,000 theft at a local casino, an embassy official said. ...

Cambodia received one of the lowest scores in the World Justice Project’s Rule of Law Index 2015, released Tuesday, ranking 99 out of 102 countries surveyed. ...

Two opposing camps of unions representing a large share of the country’s roughly 700,000 garment workers handed in petitions this week to the U.S. Embassy and others asking for their support on a controversial draft union law during a visit to the country from a ...

The Cambodian navy on Monday formally took control of Koh Damlong, a remote island that was slated to become the crown jewel of Sergei Polonsky’s offshore tourism project before the Russian developer was deported to Moscow to stand trial on serious fraud charges, officials said ...

Russian businessman Sergei Polonsky, who was deported to Moscow last month to face trial on serious fraud charges, could be allowed to return to Cambodia in five years’ time, an immigration official said Sunday. ...

In anticipation of World No Tobacco Day on Sunday, Phnom Penh’s City Hall called upon tobacco companies to stop the illegal advertisement of cigarettes and for district officials to start enforcing non-smoking zones, in an event at Wat Phnom on Friday. ...

Almost 1,000 Cambodian soldiers have been deployed along the Vietnamese border in Ratanakkiri province in an effort to combat crimes including “illegal immigration”, military officials said yesterday. ...

A Cambodian migrant worker was shot dead by a Thai foreman at the construction site where he was working last week in Thailand’s Chachoengsao province, a border official said Sunday. ...

A lawyer for Russian developer Sergei Polonsky has filed a complaint with the Preah Sihanouk Provincial Court accusing the son of his former business partner of defamation for disseminating a letter that claims Mr. Polonsky paid officials $250,000 to imprison his father. ...

The Tourism Ministry has downgraded the one-year operating licenses of two hotels where children recently drowned in swimming pools in an effort to make them compensate the victims’ families and carry out safety upgrades. ...

The Garment Manufacturers Association in Cambodia re-elected Van Sou Ieng as chairman—a position he has held for nearly two decades—at its annual general meeting on Saturday but approved a new two-term limit on the two-year post. ...