Law and judiciary

Foreign Ministry spokesman Koy Kuong yesterday defended the independence of Cambodia’s judiciary following concerns raised by a UN official about the whirlwind imprisonment of 11 activists arrested for protesting last week. Kuong accused Surya Subedi, the UN’s special rapporteur for human rights, of making a habit ...

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 newly established National Commercial Arbitration Center (NCAC) may have been set up to al­low businesses to settle disputes outside the court system, but it still needs support from judges and court officials to do its work effectively, its president said on Friday. Speaking at ...

Local rights workers say they fear ongoing protests by the Khmer Krom minority in front of the Vietnamese Embassy could be putting demonstrators at risk of a blacklisting. ...

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 ...

CPP National Assembly spokesman Chheang Vun said Saturday that there will be no investigation into why the parliament’s bureaucratic ranks are stacked with family members of one of its chief administrators, explaining that no law prohibits nepotism in the public sector. CNRP chief whip Son Chhay ...

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 ...

Officials from the Ministry of Mines and Energy checked on a quarry in Kampot province for the second time yesterday amid allegations it is operating illegally thanks to local corruption. The quarry, which is owned by husband and wife Hok Chhenda and Tep Sokha, was ...

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. ...