Law and judiciary

Minister of Interior Sar Kheng yesterday issued an order demanding that all provincial governors create a “standby working group” to monitor the political situation in anticipation of unrest following the opposition party’s potential dissolution later this week. ...

The Ministry of Interior has said it will not allow any demonstrations in front of the Supreme Court during a hearing on Thursday to decide if the opposition CNRP will be dissolved, while the Koh Kong provincial governor’s office warned it will prevent residents from ...

Farmers and agricultural NGOs slammed the seventh and final draft of a controversial agricultural law at a workshop in Phnom Penh yesterday, claiming that the law would benefit large corporations at the expense of small farmers if passed. ...

Members of the opposition Cambodia National Rescue Party have started applying for asylum in other countries amid a tightening crackdown on the party at home, according to a senior party official who is himself seeking asylum. ...

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. ...