Legal and judicial system

Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen said Thursday that he and his government have no rights to order the courts to arrest or release any suspects who have committed crimes. “I and the government have no rights to order the judiciary, the court to arrest anyone based ...

European diplomats called on Interior Minister Sar Kheng yesterday to express their concerns about the recent spate of activists’ arrests, with the minister reportedly saying that he believed a one-year sentence speedily handed down to seven Boeung Kak lake protesters last week was rather “heavy”. ...

Foreign Ministry spokesman Koy Kuong yesterday defended the independence of Cambodia’s judiciary following concerns raised by a UN official about the whirlwind imprisonment of 11 activists arrested for protesting last week. Kuong accused Surya Subedi, the UN’s special rapporteur for human rights, of making a habit ...

Despite opposition party hopes to the contrary, the Ministry of Justice yesterday rejected the idea that it could intervene in the court system to release Meach Sovannara, a Cambodia National Rescue Party official jailed last week. According to ministry spokesman Kem Santepheap, a letter from CNRP ...

King Norodom Sihamoni officially appointed new members to the judicial body that oversees the Kingdom’s judges and prosecutors last week, following the passing of a controversial law earlier this year outlining its organisation and functioning. According to a Royal Decree that was signed Thursday by the ...

Deputy Prime Minister and Interior Minister Sar Kheng received a letter from Sam Rainsy who called for the release of Meach Sovannara, head of CNRP’s information and media department, and will send the letter to the Ministry of Justice, a senior official said Friday. ...

The newly established National Commercial Arbitration Center (NCAC) may have been set up to al­low businesses to settle disputes outside the court system, but it still needs support from judges and court officials to do its work effectively, its president said on Friday. Speaking at ...

The Appeal Court has set a date to hear the case of 23 garment workers and unionists who were convicted in May in connection with violent protests calling for a doubling of the sector’s minimum wage.​ ...

Following days of high-profile convictions and charges dealt at breakneck speed, based on little evidence and little investigation, a prominent legal expert said yesterday that the law “needs to be updated” to change Cambodia’s widely decried court system. ...

The Cambodian government is carrying out a new wave of arrests of opposition party and social activists. Cambodia’s donors should speak out against the government’s harassment, arbitrary detention, and summary trials of peaceful protesters and the government should end the crackdown. The crackdown has ...

Civil society groups have condemned the arrest, detention and conviction of seven Boeung Kok land activists, following their protests earlier this week outside Phnom Penh City Hall. Phnom Penh Municipal Court on Tuesday charged them with the violation of traffic law by blocking a public ...

The Cambodia’s Phnom Penh Municipal Court on Wednesday convicted four additional protesters of obstructing public officials and sentenced each of them to one year in prison, a rights group said. The four convicts were arrested on Tuesday while joining a protest in front of the ...

The Kompong Cham Provincial Court on Wednesday released five factory workers on bail three weeks after they were charged with instigating violence and destroying property during a protest that turned violent at the Juhui Footwear factory late last month, according to their lawyer. Clashes at the ...

Police arrested another opposition activist Thursday morning for his alleged involvement in the violent July 15 protest at Freedom Park that the courts have labeled an attempted insurrection, a party official and police said. Tep Narin, a CNRP activist in his 30s, was arrested at the ...

A Cambodian court on Tuesday sentenced seven female land rights activists, including a 75-year-old woman, to one year in prison each for blocking traffic during a protest. Judge Mong Mony Sophea of Phnom Penh Municipal Court ruled the women were guilty of “creating a public ...

Opposition leader Sam Rainsy will meet with leaders of ruling party soon to seek release of a senior official. The arrest of Meach Sovannara is politically motivated and it needs to be politically intervened, said a party spokesman Yim Sovann. ...

The Cambodia’s Phnom Penh Municipal Court on Wednesday convicted seven Vietnamese nationals of procuring prostitution and sentenced them between six and ten years in prison, according to a verdict pronounced by Judge Kor Vandy. ...

More than 100 demonstrators continued to stage an anti-eviction protest in front of Koh Kong province’s city hall after a jailed community leader was denied bail yesterday. ...

An attorney for five people arrested after a violent protest at a Kampong Cham shoe factory said yesterday he is waiting for the court to issue a decision on a bail request he filed on Friday. ...

The Phnom Penh Municipal Court on Wednesday will charge six construction workers and a company manager in connection with a building site accident that killed a woman on Sunday, while work on the site has been suspended on government orders, officials said Tuesday. ...

Two outspoken critics of Cambodia’s Prime Minister Hun Sen are to be dragged to court this month on vague charges of “incitement to commit a crime,” but the defendants say they have done nothing illegal. Prominent activist monk Luon Sovath received a summons dated Oct. 22 ...

Two Vietnamese women were sentenced yesterday by Phnom Penh Municipal Court to two-and-a-half years in prison each for trafficking five Vietnamese women to have sex with wealthy men in a hotel. ...

Siem Reap Provincial Court summoned a provincial councillor and his oknha wife in for questioning last week after two businessmen filed a complaint accusing them of fraud amounting to $60,000. ...

With 10 alleged members of the “terrorist” Khmer National Liberation Front (KNLF) facing charges of treason, police yesterday threatened further arrests in Cambodia and abroad. The KNUF, or Tiger Head Movement, was accused of attempting to bomb the Cambodia-Vietnamese Friendship Monument in 2007, and the ...