Law and judiciary

Despite Prime Minister Hun Sen’s request for bus owners and cab drivers to not hike prices over the Pchum Ben holiday, passengers were subjected to a familiar price bump this week. ...

The Geneva-based Observatory for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders has appealed to the public to urge Cambodian authorities to end their “judicial harassment” of prominent human rights advocate Ny Chakrya, who stands charged with public defamation and attempting to coerce court officials. ...

The number of traffic fatalities during the 2015 Pchum Ben festival was nearly the same as last year’s, dropping just three percent.34 people were killed in road crashes between October 10 and 12, one fewer than the 35 killed during the three-day holiday in 2014. ...

Philippe Broaly, the former French judge and child-protection NGO director who was convicted in May for sexually assaulting boys in his care, had his sentence extended to three years by the Appeal Court on Friday, according to anti-pedophile NGO Action Pour Les Enfants (APLE). ...

The Phnom Penh Municipal Court on Friday acquitted a land broker of allegedly defrauding a businessman out of $2.5 million over a 9,000-hectare economic land concession (ELC) in Mondolkiri province that was eventually revoked by the government. ...

The Phnom Penh Municipal Court on Friday sentenced two Vietnamese women to five years in prison for attempting to send pseudoephedrine—a common precursor in the synthesis of methamphetamine—to Australia in a box of bras. ...

Both Prum Chan Samnang, a 20-year-old former Smart Axiata employee, and Phy Phirum, a 20-year-old air conditioning technician, were lucky enough to receive a rare “consolidation of sentences” yesterday at Phnom Penh Municipal Court. ...

The Phnom Penh Municipal Court decided Wednesday to reinvestigate the origins of the doctored treaty that provided the impetus for the arrest of opposition Senator Hong Sok Hour, after the senator’s lawyer told the court that his client did not forge it. ...

A deputy prosecutor at the Phnom Penh Municipal Court has decided not to pursue criminal charges against a fugitive nightclub owner who police say is liable for the deaths of six people killed by a fire at the establishment on September 7. ...

The National Road Safety Committee (NRSC) yesterday pledged to cut deaths on Cambodia’s roads by 50 per cent by 2020, with two new sub-commissions set to be established to help reach that goal. ...

Two dozen ethnic Montagnard Christians who fled Vietnam earlier this year to seek refuge in Cambodia from alleged persecution have volunteered to return home, frustrated with long waits and the dim prospects of being granted asylum, a police official and rights activist in northeastern Cambodia ...

Cambodia’s Phnom Penh Municipal Court has indefinitely postponed the trial on charges of “forgery and incitement” of jailed opposition senator Hong Sok Hour, adjourning again on Wednesday after proceedings resumed following an earlier postponement on Oct. 2. ...

The Koh Kong provincial court today decided to detain a forestry activist for illegally collecting product and sub-product of forest. ...

A Vietnamese national was charged with smuggling animal parts Tuesday after he was caught with 43 kg of ivory at Siem Reap International Airport on Sunday night, officials said. ...

Civil society organizations yesterday expressed concern about the new Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) set by the United Nations last month, which they said would be hard to achieve under the new Law on Associations and NGOs (LANGO).   ​ ...

Interior Minister Sar Kheng is seeking the legal means to engineer the acquittal of a student who threatened in a Facebook post to bomb a graduation ceremony he was scheduled to attend.The student, Tao Savoeun, wrote a letter to the minister on Monday, apologising and ...

The Phnom Penh Municipal Court yesterday concluded the trial of a former consular official with the Foreign Ministry accused of falsifying government documents to facilitate the sale of millions of dollars’ worth of luxury timber to Vietnam when he was stationed in Ho Chi Minh ...

A group of 900 Bunong villagers are seeking the removal of the governor of Mondolkiri, complaining in a petition that was submitted to the government Monday that he does not respect the rights of ethnic minorities in the province. ...

The Kompong Chhnang provincial government is in the process of evicting about 1,000 mostly Vietnamese families who live in the floating villages on the Tonle Sap river near the provincial capital, moving them up the river as part of a five-year plan to beautify the ...

Teachers are demanding that their salaries be raised to 1.5 million riel (about $270) per month next year, and are warning the government that if this does not happen, they will continue protesting “like a headache that will not go away.”  ...

Nine Vietnamese Montagnards who are seeking the protection of the United Nations refugee office in Cambodia’s capital said Monday that they fled their homeland last month because of political persecution, and expressed concern about possible deportation by Cambodian authorities. ...

A South Korean fugitive who is wanted by Interpol in connection with extortion in South Korea was arrested on Friday in Preah Sihanouk province, police said Sunday. ...

Seven people who were arrested last week for attempting to sell merchandise from a factory in Kompong Speu province were released on Friday, officials said, with factory owners paying more than 100 workers part of the wages they were owed. ...

On the first day of his trial on Friday, opposition senator Hong Sok Hour—who was charged with forgery and incitement in August for posting a video to Facebook that showed a fake border treaty with Vietnam—denied having fabricated the document, saying that he found it ...