Law and judiciary

Prime Minister Hun Sen threatened yesterday to impose a five-year ban on more than 100 unnamed senior CNRP officials, seemingly under a controversial provision of the Law on Political Parties, while insisting that the main opposition party will indeed be dissolved this month by the ...

The Supreme Court yesterday upheld the legality of CNRP President Kem Sokha’s detention on widely condemned charges of “treason”, despite a team of defence lawyers laying out their arguments against his imprisonment for the first time before a court. ...

The Interior Ministry on Friday warned guesthouses and clubs that they will face the law if they do not step up their efforts to ban illegal drugs use in their facilities. As part of the ministry’s ongoing campaign against drugs, the ministry said it has ...

After serving more than 800 days of a seven-year prison sentence on charges of “incitement” and “forgery”, former opposition Senator Hong Sok Hour was released last night, following an unexpected royal pardon from King Norodom Sihamoni. ...

King Norodom Sihamoni signed off on four sets of controversial amendments to Cambodia’s electoral laws yesterday, officially approving provisions that will allow the opposition CNRP’s seats to be redistributed in the event of its dissolution. ...

Prime Minister Hun Sen’s lawyer yesterday filed a lawsuit against former Deputy Prime Minister Lu Lay Sreng for defamation over comments made during a private phone conversation leaked to social media. ...

The Constitutional Council yesterday approved four sets of controversial amendments to Cambodia’s election laws, greenlighting changes that will pave the way for the main opposition party’s parliamentary seats to be redistributed in the event of its dissolution. ...

​Former Deputy Prime Minister and ex-Funcinpec official Lu Lay Sreng left the country for Thailand yesterday morning, the day after the royalist party and Prime Minister Hun Sen vowed to file lawsuits against him for disparaging the King and accusing the government of bribing Funcinpec. ...

Prey Veng province military police and the Wildlife Alliance on Friday night conducted a raid upon a truck transporting hundreds of kilograms of illegal wildlife destined for Vietnam. ...

Nearly 3,000 cases have been detected in a crackdown on fisheries and forest crime in the first nine months of this year.​ The results were in a Ministry of Agriculture and Fishery report published on Friday. ...

The government has relaxed regulations for migrant workers to obtain legal documents in Thailand, in a bid to encourage more workers to legitimise their presence in the country. ...

National Police statistics yesterday showed an 11 percent increase in road traffic deaths in the first nine months of the year but a small decrease in injuries. ...

The Senate has approved four amendments to the election laws related to the redistribution of the seats of the CNRP and local councilors if the main opposition party is dissolved. ...

Anticipating popular unrest surrounding the “treason” trial of opposition leader Kem Sokha, Minister of Interior Sar Kheng on Friday instructed provincial governors, police chiefs and officers to block people from travelling to the capital and to prevent any attempts at demonstrations. ...

On Friday, all the pieces fell into place. The Ministry of Interior, a day prior, had primed the media, instructing them on how to report the day’s events. The government’s investigation and filing to the Supreme Court that called for the main opposition party to ...

Two former Cambodia Daily journalists have been charged with “incitement to commit a felony” over seemingly routine commune election coverage in Ratanakkiri. ...

About 5,000 people have been arrested for drug use and trafficking since July in the second phase of an ongoing controversial drug crackdown, bringing the total number of arrestees this year to almost 13,700 people. ...

​Even as he expressed condolences for the mass shooting in Las Vegas on Sunday that left 59 people dead, Prime Minister Hun Sen appeared yesterday to suggest that the incident was a kind of cosmic rebuke following American warnings to its citizens about safety in ...

When Cambodia National Rescue Party President Kem Sokha stood arm-in-arm with three newly minted deputies earlier this year, the quartet seemed eager and ready to address the party’s next challenge at hand: critical commune elections that could greatly bolster grassroots support. ...

A former senior army official and head of the late Chea Sim’s bodyguard unit yesterday appealed to the Supreme Court to once again reduce his jail time for a raft of crimes including embezzlement, weapons possession, breach of trust and forgery. ...

The royalist Funcinpec party and the Cambodian Youth Party (CYP) have separately announced plans to file lawsuits to the Supreme Court to dissolve the main opposition Cambodia National Rescue Party over charges against leader Kem Sokha of treason. ...

A senoir Justice Ministry official said a pilot project to increase bail approvals and community service sentencing for small-time offenders would be impossible, weeks after the project was announced during the visit of a United Nations human rights official. ...

Just two days after they first went up, some of the Cambodia National Rescue Party banners demanding the release of jailed party leader Kem Sokha are already coming down amid government objections. ...

The Court of Appeal yesterday ruled that the ongoing detention of opposition leader Kem Sokha was legal, despite claims his parliamentary immunity had been violated – and in spite of the fact that neither the accused nor his representatives were present. ...