Law and judiciary

A representative of villagers involved in a land dispute in Mondolkiri province appealed to the government Tuesday to address their displacement after their shelters were destroyed by police and soldiers in a forced eviction Monday. Chan Rithy stood outside the National Assembly in Phnom Penh on ...

The lack of consultative process on three draft laws has set a worrying precedent for future key legislation, according to the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Cambodia, Surya P. Subedi. “For many years in my capacity as the Special RapporteurI ...

Takeo Provincial Court released eight unionists yesterday after they were questioned for several hours. The unionists from the Coalition of Cambodia Apparel Workers’ Democratic Union (C.CAWDU) were arrested on May 23 after they led workers to protest at JSD Textile (Cambodia) to demand better work condition. ...

Cambodian officials, led by Permanent Deputy Prime Minister Keat Chhon, on Monday met with a 18-member delegation representing global brands and trade unions to discuss garment worker rights and wages. It was the second round of talks between Cambodian government officials and representatives of major brands ...

About 150 garment workers turned out to the Phnom Penh of­fices of the United Sisterhood Alliance NGO on Sunday to watch a politically charged fashion show entitled “Beautiful Clothes, Ugly Reality.” Aimed to highlight “the income gap between Cambodian garment workers and the selected CEOs of ...

Eight members of Cambodia’s largest independent union were released on bail yesterday after being tried at Takeo Provincial Court over their alleged involvement in a factory protest late last week, officials said. Defence lawyer Kim Socheat said the members of the Coalition of Cambodian Apparel Workers’ ...

Copies of grade 12 examination papers will only be provided to a single teacher for each subject this year in order to identify the source of leaks, said Education Minister Hang Chuon Naron during a speech on Saturday. Mr. Naron, speaking at the American University of ...

The Takeo Provincial Court charged eight union representatives with incitement Sunday for taking part in a garment factory strike, bringing to 17 the number of unionists charged this month alone. The latest in the spate of recent arrests came just ahead of today’s high-level meeting between ...

Four days after Human Rights Watch (HRW) published a report criticizing Washington for supporting Cambodia’s “abusive armed forces,” a Facebook page containing photos cited in the report has been removed from the Internet. According to the U.S. Embassy in Phnom Penh, the Facebook page titled “Angkor ...

Two draft laws on judicial reform were easily passed by the single-party National Assembly on Friday but the session was overshadowed by a rookie lawmaker’s attack on lax enforcement of forestry laws in Stung Treng province. On the fourth day of the third plenary session of ...

A forest activist in Kampong Thom province yesterday claimed to have been threatened with a knife by a soldier after reporting that the officer was behind a number of forest crimes in the area. Pen Bunkear, a soldier with the Kampong Thom military research unit, yesterday ...

A man, 18, was arrested in Kampong Chhnang province on Friday after a grenade attack killed a 69-year-old man and seriously injured five others. [Khov] Thim [the suspect] allegedly found the grenade in a field some months ago when tending to his cows and kept ...

American national and orphanage director Daniel Stephen Johnson was tried on Friday at the Phnom Penh Municipal Court on charges that he sexually abused five boys last year. The court heard that Johnson, 36, the director of the Hope Transitions Christian orphanage in Phnom Penh’s Meanchey ...

Two men died and another was seriously injured in a hit-and-run accident on Friday night in Phnom Penh when a Range Rover plowed into a motorbike in Toek Thla commune, police said Sunday, add­ing to a recent spate of fatal—and of­ten high-profile—hit-and-runs. Thang Ratha, 23, died ...

Cambodia’s ruling party- controlled National Assembly has unanimously passed three laws, designed to strengthen the country’s judicial system, despite ongoing boycott of parliament by the main opposition party. The Law on the Organization of the Judiciary was adopted on Thursday, and the Laws on the Organization ...

Villagers in Ratanakkiri province blocked National Road 78A on Thursday for more than three hours as authorities tried to push through to evict them in favor of a rubber company, police and villagers said. About 400 villagers blocked the section of the road that links O’Chum ...

Despite presenting no hard evidence against defendants throughout the two trials of 23 men arrested during a strike that turned deadly in early January, a prosecutor used his closing statement yesterday to up the charges against union leader Vorn Pov. The final day of two trials ...

A group of about 200 farmers from Kratie province refused on Thursday to leave a pagoda in Phnom Penh—their home base for protests against their eviction at the hands of a Vietnamese rubber company—as the city’s deputy governor warned them that the municipal government would ...

The single-party National Assembly sat for the third day of its third plenary session Thursday, with a senior ruling party lawmaker calling on Information Minister Khieu Kanharith to examine whether journalists who call the Assembly “single party” can be punished under law. Sixty-four of the 68 ...

The three-ton haul of illegal elephant ivory seized by port officials on May 9 originated in Kenya and was then shipped through Malaysia to Cambodia in two freight containers, the chief of Sihanoukville Autonomous Port’s customs and excise department said Thursday. Most of the elephant ...

A car belonging to Ly Thida, the director of the Kompong Cham provincial department of economy and finance, was involved in a fatal hit-and-run collision Thursday in the province’s Choeung Prey district, a police official said. District deputy police chief Cheang Se said two people were ...

Ruling party lawmakers at the National Assembly pass the first of three draft laws in judicial reform, defying an opposition boycott and ignoring calls for further review by outside legal experts. The Law on the Organization of the Courts will put more power within the Ministry ...

During his second day under questioning on charges of inciting violence and property damage at a January 2 protest, union leader Vorn Pao was presented with photographs showing his tuk-tuk packed with rocks, and a video of him calling on low-ranking police to turn their ...

The single-party National Assembly sat for the second day of its third plenary session Wednesday, discussing two of eight chapters of the draft law on the Organization and Functioning of the Courts. The CPP-only parliament—minus 55 boycotting opposition CNRP lawmakers-elect—convened to discuss the first of three ...