Law and judiciary

A high-level agricultural official in Kampong Speu province has been charged with stealing thousands of dollars from paddy rice farmers after promising to deliver them land titles in January 2013, a rights group representative and a court prosecutor said yesterday. Cher Pich, 44, deputy director of ...

After a third day of questioning, during which the plaintiff’s story allegedly changed, the head of Cambodia’s largest independent garment union is in the dark as to where his case stands. Investigating judge Chea Sok Heang yesterday did not set a date for further questioning and ...

The leader of Cambodia’s largest independent garment union is due to appear in court this afternoon for a third round of pretrial questioning over a case stemming from a strike that ended more than six months ago. Coalition of Cambodian Apparel Workers’ Democratic Union (C.CAWDU) president ...

About 100 domestic workers planned to gather today in front of the Ministry of Labour to mark International Domestic Workers Day by calling on the government to do more to ensure their rights. Vun Samphors, president of the Cambodian Domestic Workers Network (CDWN), told the Postthat participants ...

Prey Sar prison officials on Friday set fire to 1,705 mobile phones that had been confiscated from inmates there over the past three years. Yin Kun, deputy chief of Prey Sar’s Correctional Center 1, said that the public burning of phones would remind prisoners that communicating ...

The government must make more of an effort to not only eradicate child labor, but also its underlying causes, and ensure that children attend school, local rights group Licadho said Thursday. In a statement released ahead of World Day Against Child Labor, the group said the ...

With all 11 senators from the opposition boycotting their seats, the Senate on Thursday passed three controversial judiciary laws which critics say will tighten government control of the courts. The ruling CPP’s 44 senators passed the laws without change, said CPP senator and Senate spokesman Mam ...

Mixed security forces led by Kratie province’s court prosecutor yesterday arrested six people in a huge illegal logging bust, confiscating more than 100 cubic metres of protected luxury-grade timber. ...

A 100-page set of guidelines for the legal protection of the rights of women and children was launched by the Ministry of Women’s Affairs in Phnom Penh on Thursday in a bid to address shortfalls in how the judicial system handles cases such as rape, ...

With the World Cup set to kick off in Brazil today, gamblers in Phnom Penh are preparing to place their bets, while city authorities are warning that unauthorised wagers will not be tolerated. Dara*, a seasoned gambler who regularly bets on football matches, told the Post ...

Opposition senators will boycott the plenary session on Thursday at which ruling Cambodian People’s Party lawmakers are expected to debate three controversial judicial draft laws that passed through the National Assembly unopposed last month. ...

Mondulkiri provincial police charged four men with illegal logging and immigration crimes after they allegedly caught the suspects collecting wood in O’Raing district. Vietnamese nationals Orng Minh Chhung, 30; Le Vantieng, 38; Tvan Taktech, 33; and Thvang Vanthai, 36, were arrested while gathering freshly cut pieces ...

A journalist who filed a complaint with the Pursat Provincial Court alleging that a soldier threatened to kill him over an illegal logging report withdrew his complaint after the soldier was internally disciplined, court officials and military police said Monday. Sak Rom, a reporter with Kapit ...

Representatives for the 200 Cambodian families suing U.K. sugar firm Tate & Lyle for allegedly profiting off of their stolen land say they have rejected the firm’s latest offer to settle the dispute and are looking forward to their first court date, set for October. The ...

The number of inmates who died in the country’s prisons in the first quarter of the year dipped to nine from 15 during the same period last year, a rights group and the prison department said. From January to April, nine prisoners—five men and four women—reportedly ...

Cambodia has been cited as one of 10 countries in which torture and extrajudicial killings are common, in a submission made this week by the Hong Kong-based Asia Legal Resource Center to the Human Rights Council in Geneva. ...

The Ministry of Water Resources seized four boats on Wednesday for allegedly breaking a government ban on river sand dredging in Phnom Penh and is searching for the owners. The city issued the ban last year in response to what it said was an oversupply of ...

Twenty-three labor activists are free from jail, but Freedom Park remains closed to the public. The park is a government-sanctioned place of protest, but it was closed after opposition demonstrations there in April. Phnom Penh spokesman Long Dimanche said there is “no threat” of protests ...

A village chief and security guard in Kompong Chhnang province have denied allegations that they duped villagers out of a 270-hectare social land concession, the Anti-Corruption Unit said Wednesday. The pair also denied clearing a separate 600 hectares of forestland in the province to sell to ...

The former director of the Preah Vihear provincial financial department has denied allegations that he embezzled an estimated $72,045 over the course of 2013, according to his defense posted on the Anti-Corruption Unit website Thursday. Meas Rathavuth, who was ordered into retirement on March 1, said ...

Twelve families locked in a land dispute in Kampot province blocked a construction company on Wednesday from dumping earth onto fields they maintain are theirs, villagers and a rights worker said Thursday. The villagers say the company began encroaching on their land in 2011, when they ...

Four Cambodian nationals who had been incarcerated in Thailand for logging and illegally crossing the border were released on Monday after completing their prison terms, officials said yesterday. Touch Ra, deputy director of the Chaom-Sa Ngaom international border checkpoint in Oddar Meanchey province, said two of ...

The owner of a printing house accused of infringing on the copyright of an author who contracted him was slapped with $12,500 in fines and damages by Phnom Penh Municipal Court yesterday. ...

Police in Kompong Thom province Wednesday arrested seven people allegedly involved in an illegal checkpoint racket, while an eighth escaped with handcuffs on and is at large. Shortly before 7 a.m., a joint task force of police and military police descended on an illegal checkpoint staffed ...