Law and judiciary

Cambodia’s badly overcrowded prison population leapt by nearly 20 per cent in the first 10 months of this year, government data show, raising serious health concerns.The figures, released by the Interior Ministry’s general department of prisons yesterday, show that there were 17,522 prisoners in jails ...

A new set of standards for orphanages that the Ministry of Social Affairs plans to enforce over the coming months, combined with a global move toward community-based care, has at least one organization worried it will be forced to close down. ...

The Ratanakkiri prison director accused of a litany of crimes by his underlings has fired back, denying their reports and accusing them of drug-taking, laziness and running illegal timber businesses. ...

A protest leader was arrested during a demonstration on Monday morning outside Banteay Meanchey provincial police headquarters in Poipet City because authorities said the group of about 40 people did not have permission to protest. ...

Dozens of officials at Ratanakkiri Provincial Prison have called for the director of the facility to be removed, citing a wide range of violations, including having sex with a female inmate, permitting unsanctioned prison labour and pocketing money paid in exchange for benefits. ...

An official at the Ministry of Justice says he hopes a new law on information access will help improve the country’s attitude toward its judiciary, which is widely seen as politically biased and corrupt. ...

Senate spokesman Mam Bun Neang issued a statement Monday describing as “shameful” the decision by the chamber’s 10 opposition senators to boycott the day’s vote in protest of the arrest warrant issued for opposition leader Sam Rainsy. ...

A U.S.-based Pentecostal ministry with an extensive network of “orphan homes” in Cambodia will be investigated by the Ministry of Social Affairs after allegations of sexual abuse surfaced at one of its centers in Kratie province, though the organization will be allowed three months to ...

Nearly a year after being signed into law, Cambodia’s new traffic code is just weeks from finally being enforced.National Police chief Neth Savoeun yesterday said that drivers have had plenty of notice, and the time for implementation has come. As of January 1, fines for ...

Contractors that dodge requirements to register with the social security fund, leaving workers to foot their hospital bills alone, will start facing harsher legal penalties, the director of the National Social Security Fund (NSSF) said.  ...

In the wake of attacks in Paris and San Bernadino, California, young Cambodians say they are concerned their country is not prepared for similar attacks. Cambodian officials say the government is ready to respond to attacks, though, as the recent mob beatings of two opposition ...

For many Cambodian victims of sexual assault, justice can be hard to find. Not only can it be difficult culturally to report rape and other crimes, but police and the courts are not necessarily well trained to deal with sensitive crimes. Add to that judicial ...

Rights and development groups say a draft law on access to information will be more useful to the public if it has input from outside the government.A number of civil society organizations met in Phnom Penh this week to discuss the law, in hopes of ...

When the Battambang Provincial Court last week handed down a 25-year prison sentence to Yem Chrin, an unlicensed medic blamed for spreading HIV to more than 280 residents of rural Roka commune, it likely failed to consider relevant medical evidence, according to interviews with doctors ...

Forty-six senators from the ruling CPP on Monday unanimously ap­proved the 2016 national budget and the telecommunications law in the absence of 10 boycotting senators from the opposition Sam Rain­sy Party (SRP), according to a press re­lease. ...

A lawyer for CNRP lawmakers Nhay Chamroeun and Kong Saphea, who were severely beaten on October 26 in front of the National Assembly, filed a new complaint with the Phnom Penh Municipal Court on Monday asking that those arrested for the crime be charged with ...

The government’s Apsara authority will join forces with the Preah Vihear administration to establish a joint committee to prevent illegal logging and to manage state land in the protected areas around Koh Ker, officials said yesterday. ...

Dozens of activist monks rallied on Sunday at Wat Stung Meanchey to protest the pagoda’s decision to defrock a fellow monk for allegedly throwing Buddha statues into a dirty pond, claiming that he was framed because he is Khmer Krom and is known for supporting ...

A Vietnamese woman imprisoned on child sex trafficking charges in 2009 received a humanitarian royal pardon last month, but only after she had been dead for more than a month, the rights NGO Licadho said yesterday. ...

Rights group Licadho says it is canceling its annual prison visits on international Human Rights Day, which this year falls on Thursday, for the first time in two decades in protest over what it says are new government restrictions. ...

When 112 families gathered to demonstrate for four hours in front of the Ratanakkiri provincial court last Wednesday, most of their invective was directed toward the court itself, and toward someone they termed “a rich man from Phnom Penh,” a Mr. Heang Socheat, whom, they ...

Around 100 people upset over the installation of new electricity transmission towers by the national electricity company, Electricite du Cambodge (EdC), protested on Friday morning in Phnom Penh’s Meanchey district to demand a halt in the placement of the towers, or suitable compensation, protesters and officials ...

Private utility companies that run their cables along overhead lines in central Phnom Penh will now have to bury them beneath the city’s streets, and pay to do so, City Hall announced on Friday.   ...

As expected, opposition leader Sam Rainsy failed to show up at the Phnom Penh Municipal Court for a scheduled questioning date on Friday, as he remains abroad after being hit with a slew of criminal charges and an arrest warrant in recent weeks. ...