7th March, 2009
Opinion by Khmerization
Cambodia’s justice has been suffering image problems since the formal inception of the Cambodian judiciary. From one regime to the next, Cambodia’s justice system, and its tarnished image, remained virtually unchanged. And after the 1970 coup d’etat that toppled Sihanouk’s royalist regime and the installation of the Khmer Republican regime of Marshall Lon Nol, Cambodian judicial and justice system has suffered incessant political interferences. But the level of political interferences in the judiciary has never been on a scale seen today.
Political and legal pundits are dumbstruck about the level of injustice that has been practising in the Cambodian courts today. The high level of injustice comes about in large part due to the economic factor of the judges because of very low pay which lead them to practise corruption. But the main factor leading to rampant corruption and injustice is mainly due to the condonation of corruption and impunity tolerated by the government. As a result, justice has become too expensive for many ordinary Cambodians.
The scale of justice in today's Cambodia is tilting toward the rich and the powerful at the expense of the poor. In Cambodia of today, people win court cases not because they deserve to win. People win court cases based on how much money they can bribe the judges, regardless of whether they are on the right or the wrong side of the laws. The more people are willing to bribe the judges, the more chances they will be assured of winning. This is why nowadays, the poor people have lost confidence in the justice system and resort to take matter into their own hands. Regardless of what purpose it was originally designed for, the Cambodian justice system has effectively become the tool for the rich and the powerful to oppress the poor.
Corruption has made justice in Cambodia unreachable by the have-nots, but it served the rich and the powerful well because of the money and the political powers they wield. But the political interferences in the judicial system have made it virtually impossible for those who are on the opposite side of politics to the government to obtain justice. Crimes perpetrated against opposition figures by government agents have never been resolved. On the contrary, crimes perpetrated against supporters of government, whether the perpetrators are from the opposition or elsewhere, have always resulted in the wrong convictions of opposition supporters.
Case in point: The recent lifting of Mr. Sam Rainsy’s parliamentary is a gross injustice and a blatant proof of high level of political interferences in the judiciary. The Cambodian People’s Party-controlled judiciary failed to take action on Mr. Sam Rainsy’s lawsuit against the National Election Committee (NEC) for electoral frauds. On the contrary, the court took action against Mr. Sam Rainsy, following lawsuit lodged by the NEC for failing to pay fines, which resulted in his parliamentary immunity being lifted.
The lifting of Mr. Sam Rainsy’s parliamentary immunity is illegal for many reasons. First, Mr. Sam Rainsy has not been allowed to exhaust all avenues of appeals. He was still appealing to the High Court when the Permanent Committee of the Parliament hurriedly lifted his immunity in contravention of the constitution. The Cambodian constitution stipulates that only the full session of the parliament can decide on such a matter. Secondly, Mr. Sam Rainsy had paid the fines on the same day as when his parliamentary immunity has been lifted. And immediately after the payment of the fines, the NEC, the plaintiff against Mr. Sam Rainsy, withdrew the lawsuit against Mr. Sam Rainsy. Mr. Sam Rainsy immediately wrote to the president of the National Assembly requesting for his immunity to be re-instated. As a matter of fact, without political interferences, the matter is considered finished. But due to political interferences, up until today, nearly two weeks after the fines have been paid, Mr. Sam Rainsy is still without his parliamentary immunity.
Mr. Sam Rainsy’s case, if not for any political motivation, can be resolved in split seconds. Cambodia has more urgent and pressing issues for the government, especially Prime Minister Hun Sen, to deal with. Political pundits and observers put the blames squarely on the government, Prime Minister Hun Sen in particular, for artificially creating a lot of trivial issues for itself to be occupied with in a deliberate attempt to divert public attention from the more pressing issues of unemployment, global financial crisis, crimes and border issues.
For the sake of Cambodia and her suffering people, Cambodian political leaders, Prime Minister Hun Sen and Mr. Sam Rainsy in particular, should set aside their political differences and unite in one force to work together in helping to tackle urgent issues facing the Cambodian nation today. Border issues, political, economic and social ills should be on top of their agenda. Internal infighting, as is always the case, has brought havoc and destruction. Internal infighting against one’s own fellow countrymen, even against those who are from the opposite side of politics, is effectively a national suicide.
To sum up, in order to make Cambodian justice system a clean and just system, the judges have to be paid well and severe punishments of judges who are involved in corruption must be applied. But more importantly, political entities must stop interfering with the courts’ works and the courts and judges must be made to be neutral and truly independent of politics.
Opinion by Khmerization
“In Cambodia of today, people win court cases not because they deserve to win. People win court cases based on how much money they can bribe the judges, regardless of whether they are on the right or the wrong side of the laws.”
Cambodia’s justice has been suffering image problems since the formal inception of the Cambodian judiciary. From one regime to the next, Cambodia’s justice system, and its tarnished image, remained virtually unchanged. And after the 1970 coup d’etat that toppled Sihanouk’s royalist regime and the installation of the Khmer Republican regime of Marshall Lon Nol, Cambodian judicial and justice system has suffered incessant political interferences. But the level of political interferences in the judiciary has never been on a scale seen today.
Political and legal pundits are dumbstruck about the level of injustice that has been practising in the Cambodian courts today. The high level of injustice comes about in large part due to the economic factor of the judges because of very low pay which lead them to practise corruption. But the main factor leading to rampant corruption and injustice is mainly due to the condonation of corruption and impunity tolerated by the government. As a result, justice has become too expensive for many ordinary Cambodians.
The scale of justice in today's Cambodia is tilting toward the rich and the powerful at the expense of the poor. In Cambodia of today, people win court cases not because they deserve to win. People win court cases based on how much money they can bribe the judges, regardless of whether they are on the right or the wrong side of the laws. The more people are willing to bribe the judges, the more chances they will be assured of winning. This is why nowadays, the poor people have lost confidence in the justice system and resort to take matter into their own hands. Regardless of what purpose it was originally designed for, the Cambodian justice system has effectively become the tool for the rich and the powerful to oppress the poor.
Corruption has made justice in Cambodia unreachable by the have-nots, but it served the rich and the powerful well because of the money and the political powers they wield. But the political interferences in the judicial system have made it virtually impossible for those who are on the opposite side of politics to the government to obtain justice. Crimes perpetrated against opposition figures by government agents have never been resolved. On the contrary, crimes perpetrated against supporters of government, whether the perpetrators are from the opposition or elsewhere, have always resulted in the wrong convictions of opposition supporters.
Case in point: The recent lifting of Mr. Sam Rainsy’s parliamentary is a gross injustice and a blatant proof of high level of political interferences in the judiciary. The Cambodian People’s Party-controlled judiciary failed to take action on Mr. Sam Rainsy’s lawsuit against the National Election Committee (NEC) for electoral frauds. On the contrary, the court took action against Mr. Sam Rainsy, following lawsuit lodged by the NEC for failing to pay fines, which resulted in his parliamentary immunity being lifted.
The lifting of Mr. Sam Rainsy’s parliamentary immunity is illegal for many reasons. First, Mr. Sam Rainsy has not been allowed to exhaust all avenues of appeals. He was still appealing to the High Court when the Permanent Committee of the Parliament hurriedly lifted his immunity in contravention of the constitution. The Cambodian constitution stipulates that only the full session of the parliament can decide on such a matter. Secondly, Mr. Sam Rainsy had paid the fines on the same day as when his parliamentary immunity has been lifted. And immediately after the payment of the fines, the NEC, the plaintiff against Mr. Sam Rainsy, withdrew the lawsuit against Mr. Sam Rainsy. Mr. Sam Rainsy immediately wrote to the president of the National Assembly requesting for his immunity to be re-instated. As a matter of fact, without political interferences, the matter is considered finished. But due to political interferences, up until today, nearly two weeks after the fines have been paid, Mr. Sam Rainsy is still without his parliamentary immunity.
Mr. Sam Rainsy’s case, if not for any political motivation, can be resolved in split seconds. Cambodia has more urgent and pressing issues for the government, especially Prime Minister Hun Sen, to deal with. Political pundits and observers put the blames squarely on the government, Prime Minister Hun Sen in particular, for artificially creating a lot of trivial issues for itself to be occupied with in a deliberate attempt to divert public attention from the more pressing issues of unemployment, global financial crisis, crimes and border issues.
For the sake of Cambodia and her suffering people, Cambodian political leaders, Prime Minister Hun Sen and Mr. Sam Rainsy in particular, should set aside their political differences and unite in one force to work together in helping to tackle urgent issues facing the Cambodian nation today. Border issues, political, economic and social ills should be on top of their agenda. Internal infighting, as is always the case, has brought havoc and destruction. Internal infighting against one’s own fellow countrymen, even against those who are from the opposite side of politics, is effectively a national suicide.
To sum up, in order to make Cambodian justice system a clean and just system, the judges have to be paid well and severe punishments of judges who are involved in corruption must be applied. But more importantly, political entities must stop interfering with the courts’ works and the courts and judges must be made to be neutral and truly independent of politics.
2 comments:
Political interferences in the legal system will exist in the Cambodian justice system so long as our political leaders think about personal interests more than the interests of the people and the nation.
Corruption will remain an issue so long as the judges are still paid peanuts and impunity still exist.
The only way to clean up the system, as Khmerization has put it, is to pay judges good wages, punish corrupt judges and make courts neutral by appointing neutral, professional and non-political judges and by stopping political interferences. Currently, judges are political appointees.
Paying judges a decent salary is the good start to try to create justice in the Cambodian society, particularly justice for the poor, the powerless and those who are not well-connected with the government.
Cronyism, nepotism and corruption are problems deeply rooted in the mentality of the Khmers and they are not going to be easily solved in one generation.
One would have imagined that they had died down to some extent after a few years under the Khmer Rouge regime, but it turned out that deprivation during that time causes paradoxically more greed on wealth and power impossible to satisfy among the so-called elites in our society.
For justice to prevail in Cambodia, a new vision on the part of those in power and those waiting for their turn in power has to come about from their hearts. Among other things that need to happen is the desire to step down after a few terms and let new faces and new ideas take over; Otherwise, I do not see any glimpse of hope for future changes in Cambodia, our beloved and unfortunate country.
We continue to destroy our own country and love to blame others for the final destruction of our motherland. We can't change geopolitics and the attitudes of our ambitious, territorially greedy and more powerful neighbours to the east and to the west who will continue to exert pressure and influence on us, but we can organize our society and country in such a way that we shall be strong enough and always united to protect the remaining land we still have and maintain our total independance.
Education, if provided correctly, may be one of the hopeful solutions, if not the only solution, to help change the destructive attitute of the Khmers.
Cambodia has so far continued to squander all the opportunities to develop herself into a much more prosperous, self-sufficient and modern nation.
International aids and sympathy plus our abundant natural resources are not here with us for ever. They will eventually be depleted.
It is too sad that the country has so much natural beauty and abundance, but also too many short-sighted leaders from one regime to the next and there appears to be no end to this.
Anet Khmer
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