Law and judiciary

Diplomats, legal experts and political analysts all met in a forum in Phnom Penh Tuesday to discuss the implications of last year’s election and the ongoing political deadlock. Some diplomats, like Dinesh Patnaik, India’s ambassador to Cambodia, questioned the legitimacy of a government the opposition refuses ...

Workplace deaths shot up more than 60 per cent last year when compared with 2012, while injuries and payouts to those injured also saw dramatic increases, according to data released yesterday by the National Social Security Fund (NSSF). Speaking during a conference at the Ministry of ...

Ethnic Jarai villagers in Ratanakkiri province have once again accused the Vietnamese owners of a rubber plantation of illegally logging their ancestral forests in a complaint filed with rights group Adhoc. A district official, however, said the plantation owner, Company 72, was granted an extension on ...

The National Social Security Fund (NSSF) on Monday launched an initiative to provide health insurance to the nation’s workforce, a plan that the country’s largest employers’ associations said was premature. NSSF director Ouk Samvithya said that by the middle of this year, enterprises in the country ...

The Cambodian government says it has no plans so far to carry out a lawsuit against the opposition for damages from violent demonstrations in January. The Ministry of Interior has released a report, claiming $72 million in public and private damages, including to 95 different factories, ...

Phnom Penh Municipal Court on Friday summonsed three senior leaders of Cambodia’s largest independent garment union for questioning over claims they embezzled money meant to be paid to workers in compensation following an industrial dispute, a court official has said. ...

A lawyer representing three of the 23 people arrested during garment strike clashes on January 2 and 3 hopes the capital’s court will drop charges against her clients when it hears their case on April 18, she said yesterday. ...

Local conglomerate Royal Group said Tuesday that while it is committed to its partnership with Australia-based ANZ bank, it would entertain selling its stake in ANZ Royal Bank for “a very high offer.” “The Royal Group would like to clarify that it is a strong and ...

A senior Education Ministry official on Thursday said that jailing students caught cheating, as threatened by the Anti-Corruption Unit (ACU) on Tuesday, was the wrong approach to cleaning up the national high school exam. Instead, he called for a budget increase to offset losses that teachers ...

A Cambodian national was fatally shot near the Thailand-Cambodia border on Wednesday in the latest of a string of deadly incidents along the border this month, officials said yesterday. Theng Sokla, 27, a native of Pailin province’s Sala Krao district, was hunting for animals on a ...

Prime Minister Hun Sen has signed a sub-decree to better regulate pharmacies, a business fraught with fake drugs and fake diplomas. The new sub-decree of the Pharmacists’ Code of Ethics contains 71 articles. They ban distribution of fake drugs and the use of titles not ...

A government committee charged with assessing damage from the garment worker protests in December and January has put the value of the destruction at over $250,000. It places blame squarely on the opposition CNRP and a trio of union leaders. That committee’s report, released Thursday, ...

The director of the Lumphat district forestry department in Ratanakkiri province was charged and put in pre-trial detention on Monday for allegedly logging on protected land around Ou’Sinlair waterfall, police and court officials revealed yesterday. Deputy Police Chief Klol Thoeun said that Meung Bunthin was picked ...

The Phnom Penh Municipal Court sentenced a former Banteay Meanchey provincial court clerk to two years in jail after finding him guilty on corruption and bribery charges brought by the Anti-Corruption Unit (ACU). ...

Family members of two men slain by military police in violent suppression of a garment worker protest in January were questioned Wednesday at the Ministry of Interior, although the investigation into the killings was officially declared closed on March 16. Soun Nara, the brother of Yean ...

More than 50 land rights activists from two Phnom Penh communities filed a complaint Wednesday with police over an incident in which an unidentified man allegedly fired a shot at a bus transporting them from an anti-eviction protest in Siem Reap to Phnom Penh. The city’s ...

Opposition leaders yesterday announced plans to hold a thousands-strong “people’s congress” in the capital’s Freedom Park on Sunday, despite a ban on gatherings at the site. Cambodia National Rescue Party president Sam Rainsy and vice-president Kem Sokha, following their return from overseas trips to Australia, New ...

An official with the government’s Anti-Corruption Unit (ACU) said Tuesday that staff there were specifically instructed not to investigate allegations of large-scale bribery inside the Health Ministry so that the unit could settle the case out of court. On Sunday, ACU chief Om Yentieng told reporters ...

A case filed by a youth organiser against Prime Minister Hun Sen, in which the premier was accused of illegally ceding Cambodian territory to Vietnam, has been dropped by Phnom Penh Municipal Court. ...

The Phnom Penh Municipal Court on Tuesday heard the case of three people who were charged with fraudulently obtaining passports for four Cambodian women in an attempt to send them to China for marriage. ...

Judges are now required to write a reasoned explanation when placing citizens in pre-trial detention, instead of simply checking a box as was previously practiced, Justice Minister Ang Vong Vathana said Tuesday. But the Ministry of Justice is also considering amending the criminal procedure code to ...

Labor Minister Ith Sam Heng said Tuesday that he has sent a letter responding to 30 international clothing brands who recently wrote to the government expressing their concerns over a draft union law which could allow for the arbitrary breakup of unions. Speaking outside a conference ...

Some 625 prisoners could be released or see their jail terms reduced on the occasion of Khmer New Year, which falls on April 14-16, according to the Ministry of Justice. ...

The United States government on Tuesday organized an intellectual property rights (IPR) enforcement workshop for some 50 Cambodian and Lao law enforcement officials. ...