Phnom Penh Post
Cheam Yeap (bottom),
chairman of the National Assembly’s Banking and Finance Committee,
speaks while National Assembly President Heng Samrin presides over a
meeting in Phnom Penh, Friday, Feb. 15, 2013. Photograph: Sen
David/Phnom Penh Post
National Assembly President Heng Samrin shut down opposition members
on Friday, abruptly cancelling a debate and calling to vote a draft law
that opposition members say would have promised civil servants better
compensation before being amended by the ruling party.
According to Sam Rainsy Party parliamentarian Son Chhay, the original
draft of the law had laid out housing, travel and fuel benefits for
civil servants with the aim of subsidising their relatively meagre
salaries, but Friday’s bill – which passed 85 to 94 – had been heavily
redacted, making no mention of the benefits.
When the opposition protested the changes on the floor, however,
Samrin promptly cancelled the formal debate, saying that most members of
parliament agreed on the law already, and that Chhay could not “comment
more, because you comment a lot during debates”.
Chhay said yesterday that under parliamentary procedure, the two
sides each offer a brief summary of their positions before the actual
debate begins – something that never happened Friday.
“After we mounted [our] overall view on the law, the speaker decided
to skip the real part of the debate and vote on the law, and everyone
raised their hand,” said Chhay, noting that he had never seen a debate
cancelled altogether before.
The decision to strip the legislative processes out of later additions, he added, was also troubling.
“The [ruling party] changed that article to say that the government
will determine the civil servant payment through a sub-decree, so my
concern is that the government is not really using the law,” he said.
“They are using sub-decrees to replace existing law.”
Koul Panha, executive director of the election monitoring group
Comfrel, said that for the opposition, the current term of the National
Assembly had been “stricter and stricter compared to the previous term”
due to the diminished presence of royalist parties, which used to
mitigate the CPP’s influence.
However, Nguon Nhel, first deputy president of the assembly, defended
Samrin’s decision, saying on Friday that the president has discretion
to lead the debate as he sees fit, and that Son Chhay’s preliminary
argument was “enough”.
To contact the reporters on this story: Stuart White at
stuart.white@phnompenhpost.com
Sen David at
david.sen@phnompenhpost.com
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