HUMAN RIGHT SITUATION IN CAMBODIA
“PROGRESSES AND CHALLENGES”
By MEY
Sopheakdei
I. Introduction
1. History Background
Human rights are absolutely crucial for human beings
on this earth in which they want to live and have freedom and rights to protect
themselves from any violence, but in the last few decades Cambodia had met a
lot of abuse of human rights on its people through many regimes and over
decades Cambodia has experienced several important regime changes and wars since
1970, when it was engulfed in the neighboring Vietnam War. The country fell
under communist Khmer Rouge rule during the second half of the 1970s. Under
this rule, the Cambodian people suffered from one of the world's worst and most
extensive cases of mass human rights violations, resulting in the death of one
and half million people. In 1979 the Khmer Rouge were ousted. This change
plunged Cambodia into yet another war were cold war and civil war in the
country and region.
The settlement of the latter war was reached in 1991
at an international conference in Paris, France. The State participants in that
conference took serious note of the recent tragic history of Cambodia and committed
themselves to promote and encourage respect for and observance of human rights
and fundamental freedoms in Cambodia, as embodied in the relevant international
instruments to which they are party. They also recognized that this tragic
recent history requires special measures to assure protection of human rights,
and the non-return to the policies and practices of the past. Towards this end
Cambodia committed itself, among other things, to ensure respect for and
observance of human rights and fundamental freedoms and adhere to relevant
international human rights instruments.
Among these measures were Cambodia’s adoption of a
pluralistic liberal democratic system of government, and its undertaking to
ensure respect for, and observance of, human rights and fundamental freedoms.
For their part, the other State signatories also committed themselves to
promoting and encouraging such respect and observance, and the UN was tasked
with monitoring the situation of human rights in the war stricken country.
Following these accords, Cambodia has become party to
all major international human rights norms and standards and incorporated them
into its constitution. This constitution has established an independent
judiciary for the protection of the rights and freedoms of all Cambodian
citizens so that aggrieved individuals can have courts to adjudicate on and
enforce their rights. Furthermore, the same constitution has assigned the King
of Cambodia to be the guarantor of both the independence of the judiciary and the
rights and freedoms of Cambodian citizens. Cambodia is therefore
internationally bound by international human rights norms and standards by
virtue of the Paris Peace Agreements and the constitution it adopted in 1993.
Under the peace accords Cambodia was placed under the
administration of the United Nations, whose main tasks were to maintain peace
and organize the election of a new government. Cambodia began in earnest to honor
its obligations when, soon after the signing of the Paris Peace Accords, it acceded
to all relevant international human rights instruments, and enshrined the
guarantee and protection of these rights in a new constitution in 1993. This
constitution turned Cambodia into a liberal democracy governed by the rule of
law and respecting human rights, and enshrined the principle of separation of
powers and an independent judiciary. The judiciary has the constitutional duty
to protect the rights and freedoms of the Cambodian people.
Fifteen years on there has been progress in human
rights and democracy, with the emergence of a civil society and political
parties, the holding of regular elections, the abandonment of the state
monopoly of the media, and the establishment of a market economy. Violence
against members of the opposition, journalists and other government critics has
decreased. But the mindset and practices of the communist days have not
disappeared and adjusted to the change in regime.
At the beginning of 2006, the human rights situation
in Cambodia appeared to have changed for the better compared with the previous
year. However, some negative developments again clouded the situation in
Cambodia that still meets a lot of challenges of human rights in the country
due to the term of development in some parts of the whole country in which it
also relates with the government millennium development goal that harm on
citizens’ rights, which required more efforts and a better strategy to again
bring about change for the better.
To clear understand on the human rights abuses and
violations in Cambodia, we need to know the key issues which will be detailed
below. In this topic, we will discuss many main points which relevant to the
human rights abuses and violations in Cambodia and its effect to the Cambodians
and the solutions with cases in the whole country.
2. Problem Formulation
a.
What are the progresses and challenges of human rights
in Cambodia?
b.
Why does Cambodia need human right for its people?
c.
How are human rights implemented in Cambodia?
3. Objective and Advantage
Human rights which are important
to human beings, nowadays, become the critical thought among the other issues
in Cambodia in which to study on human rights have many important following
objectives:
a.
To analyze the human rights in Cambodia
b.
To seek out the violations from human right abuse
through various factors.
c.
To explain the implementation of human rights in
Cambodia
d.
To find out the solutions for reduction on human
rights abuse in Cambodia.
To conduct the research on
the topic “Human Rights in Cambodia: progress and challenges” perfectly, we
need to choose the major elements including the abuses and violations of human
rights in which the government and Cambodia society play the important role to
protect and promote the human rights. Moreover,
we would like to seek the solution of human rights which causes to violations
in Cambodia. Also, we would like to specify some government action which abuse
and violate human rights such as land concession, Land and
forestry issues, judicial reform, Impunity, Prisons, Elections, Housing land
grabbing, and Trafficking in human beings so on.
To seek the truth that what have happened
around Cambodia, people scrim for help while the government or private sectors
violate their rights with individual own property and so on which all of those
things belong to them.
4. Scope of the study
In order to complete this task, we need to spend some times
as follow, for the first week we find out and surf the internet relevant to the
documents through varies websites and including books, newspapers, and second
week, we collect all data and start to set up the specific source to the topic,
the third week, after the teacher correct the topic, we prepare documents and
produce the assignment papers plan to submit to instructor as well as prepare
for the presentation. Also, we start writing book. This research paper is
studied only in Cambodia in the year from 2000 to 2010.
II. Understanding of Human Rights
We think it is always useful
to remind ourselves about what human rights are, especially when these notions are often clouded and distorted by
misconceptions, ignorance, indifference or deliberate calculation to associate them with evil in order to discredit
them.
Those who are deprived of the most fundamental human
rights – human rights to life, to personal security, to physical and mental
integrity, to health, education, housing, livelihood or employment - usually
know the value of human rights in their lives. A girl deprived of education
because she is a girl, or is too poor, understands the value of the right to
education. A father who sees his child dying because he is too poor to afford
him medical treatment understands the value of the right to health. A
journalist who is imprisoned or murdered because of his writings understands
the value of freedom of opinion and press. The farmer who is deprived of the
land that he has cleared and cultivated for years, understand the value of the
right to land. A factory worker struggling with others to improve wages and
working conditions knows the value of the right to form a union and to
peacefully demonstrate. A child who sees its home bulldozed in front of his own
eyes, and becomes homeless as a result, understands the value of the rights to
land, housing and security.
Human Rights reflect the profound aspiration of every
human being to be treated with respect by others, and in particular by the
State, and to realize one’s life to its full potential. In this respect, the
right to development concerns every human being, if by development one understands
the conditions by which we create the economic, social and cultural environment
in which we can realize our life to its full potential. It is only when one can
realize one’s life that one feels this sense of fulfillment that is called
happiness. Human rights are about freedom, respect, cooperation and
responsibility. They are the basic values of living together that makes
individual life and collective life worth. This why these values have been
valued and cherished by people the world over, and why they will continue to be
cherished in the future because they are about the quality of our life.
On the other hand, after we know what human rights is
we should find out who can help us to protect our rights in society in which we
call “Human Rights Defenders.” Human rights Defenders come from all walks of
life, from ordinary people defending their land, their houses, the graves of
their ancestors, their community, their environment and their work, to
students, journalists, trade union workers, doctors, teachers, lawyers, NGO activists.
They are all those who are acting, in their life, in
their work, and in society to combat discrimination, exclusion, oppression and
violence; to promote justice for victims, and accountability for perpetrators
of violations; and transparency in government action.
In this regard, human rights defenders may also be
Government officials, and should primarily be Government officials, for the
primary responsibility to promote and protect human rights rests with
Governments. A Minister or a Governor who authorizes a legal and peaceful
demonstration to go is acting as a human rights defender. A doctor who actively
promotes universal access to anti-retroviral treatment is acting as a human
rights defender. A judge who applies the law in a fair manner acts as a human
rights defender.
What it involves to act as a human rights defender is
the consciousness of the value of rights, commitment and courage. Courage - -
because human rights defenders are often putting at risk their own life,
safety, and that of their families. This is why they must be protected. And it
is primarily the responsibility of a Government which is serious about human
rights, to enable and protect them, not only in words but most importantly, in
deeds. The recognition of the role of human rights defenders and of the
responsibility of Governments to respect, enable and protect them was
translated in 1998 by all Member States of the United Nations into a
declaration dedicated to their protection and commonly-known as the “human
rights Defenders declaration”.
For all these reasons, this day is important to remind
ourselves the role and work of human rights defenders in the building of our
communities, in our country but also in the growing world community, and to pay
a special tribute to them.
Before moving to a detailed discussion of human rights
situation in Cambodia with progresses and challenges, it is important to
understand the broad concept of human right or the nature of human right used
here. We are used to thinking about human rights in the terms of individual
human rights, that is, freedom from specific abuses or restrictions, especially
by governments. “According to the U.S Bill of Rights prohibits the government
from abridging individual Americans’ right to exercise their religion or free
speech and from committing a variety of other abuses. These are generally
called civil and political rights, those things that the government and perhaps
others can not do to individuals or groups.”[1]
Beyond civil and political rights, there is another range of
rights that are more collective in nature. These are generally called economic
and social rights, they include those basic necessities that a society and its
government are arguably obligated to provide as best they can in order to
assure certain qualitative standards of life for everyone in the community. In
these economic and social rights are the rights to receive the adequate
education, nutrition, housing, sanitation, health care, and other basic
necessary to live with dignity and security and to be a productive individual.
Whatever we think of nature of human rights, we always refer
to the basic human rights in which they include:
1.
“Survival needs”
to avoid violence: This is the requisite to avoid and the right to be free from
individual and collective violence.
2.
“Well-being
needs” to avoid misery: This is the right to adequate nutrition and water,
to movement, sleep, sex, and other biological wants, to protection from
diseases and from adverse climatological and environmental impacts.
3.
“Identity needs”
to avoid alienation: This is the right to self-expression, to realize our
potential, to establish and maintain emotional bonds with others, to preserve
cultural heritage and association, to contribute through work and other
activity, and to receive information about and maintain contact with nature,
global humanity, and other aspects of the biosphere.
4.
“Freedom needs”
to avoid repression: this is the right to receive and express opinions, to
assemble with others, to have a say in common policy, and to choose in such
wide-ranging maters as jobs, spouses, where to live, and lifestyle.
As we know nature of human
rights are occurred by human beings themselves to exist those right for them to
live with the elements of human rights that we mentioned above. It is
absolutely important for us to call for our rights in a condition in which we
are abused in the bad ways. Actually, we all have rights to live as a human
being on this earth, but sometimes we do not know how to call out our rights in
the society such as wild society. That means we are always abused against the
Universal Declaration of Human Rights articles in which we are human beings established
for serving of human harmonious and happy lives in the prosperous society.
We should be known our
rights in order to create the plan in the way of protection of our live away
from those activities in which they violate and abuse our freedom and rights as
the human being in one society. Actually, we have to claim for our freedom and
rights.
In short, Human Rights are
things we provide for basic standards people need for a life in dignity as
human being, the fundamental of freedom, justice and peace, a guarantee for a
full development of the individual and the community, a rule for the government
what to do and what not to do to respect the rights of their citizens and the proclaimed
in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in the International Bill of Human
Right. Moreover, those rights that are agreed upon as being under the
protection of the international law can properly be said to be part of the body
of human rights and the lists of the civil and political rights and economic, social
and cultural rights are considered the definition of human rights.
III.
Human
Rights Situation in Cambodia
So far we know about what human
rights is in the understanding section, after world war II Cambodia was an
isolate country in the region in which Cambodia met a lot of difficult in enhancing
and preserving human right. Even though, the proclamation of Universal
Declaration of Human Right was adopted on December 10 1948 with the lists of
civil and political rights and economic, social and cultural rights, Cambodia
was still not a democratic country because the first Cambodia constitution was
adopted in 1947 and human right also is not the cultural, traditional idea of
Cambodia ideology.
Cambodia had met a lot of
human rights abuse and violation during the last few decades because Cambodia
had changed six regimes Kingdom of Cambodia from 1947-1970, khmer Republic form
1970-1905, Democratic Kampuchea from 1975-1979, People Republic of Kampuchea
form 1979-1989, State of Cambodia from 1989-1993, and Kingdom of Cambodia from
1993-present. So during each of the regimes Cambodia passed many war include
world war, cold war, and civil war.
However, later on Cambodia
had signed many agreements to protect and promote human right in the country
after Cambodia joint the United Nations member. Recently, we see Cambodia
causes violation and abuse of human rights in term of development and Cambodia
citizens are suffer from these kinds of violation and abuse. We will seek the
truth through the progress of human right and challenges of human rights in
Cambodia in the following subpoints.
1.
The
Progress of Human Rights
Having passed through many
decades of wars and civil wars, Cambodia
is considered young for democracy although it is the oldest country in South-East Asia and one of the oldest countries in the
world. On 23 October 1991 was the date of adoption of Pairs Peace Agreements
which brought Cambodia
the process of peace. Then a new democratic constitution of Cambodia was
adopted in 1993 and it states that Cambodia shall recognize and respect human
rights as stipulated in the United Nations Charter, the Universal Declaration
of human Rights, the covenants and conventions related to human rights, women's
and children's rights. The constitution also states that the country has united
for ‘the restoration of Cambodia into an "Island of Peace" based on a
multi-party liberal democratic regime guaranteeing human rights, abiding by
law, and having high responsibility for the nation's future destiny of moving
toward perpetual progress, development, prosperity, and glory. Based on what
has been stipulated in its constitution, Cambodia has tried to improve the
situation of human rights and many achievements have been brought about by the
Government.
a. Education Rights:
The
State shall protect the rights of the children as stipulated in the Convention
on Children particularly the rights of education. The State shall built schools
and support the educations until grade 12 of high school in the sense that all
citizens can get free educations. The number of places for university level
education is limited, that is, only excellent students and priority student
from isolated area are allowed to study without paying and the other have to
pay for their study on their own.
b. Fair Trial Rights: The Cambodia’s constitution guarantees
the independence of the judiciary and the right to a fair and public hearing by
a competent, independent, and impartial tribunal. There have been efforts to
rebuild the legal framework since 1993 and to rebuild the judiciary.
The Khmer
Rouge Court has been created with collaboration from the United
Nations and some high ranking leaders in the genocide regime have been
temporarily arrested and have been waiting for judgments. This is a standard
example for Cambodia’s
court ever done before. From this court, Cambodian citizens will start to feel
confident that justice does exist and it is also a warning to all dictators.
Recently the Institution of Anti-corruption has taken its approach to reform
the judicial systems by bringing the corrupted high officials to the court.
This will lead Cambodia
to a real democratic state and will bring its citizens the justice.
c.
Land
Rights:
The Cambodia Land Law of
2001 sets out in detail how Cambodians’ land rights should be protected. The
Land Rights Unit works to discourage unlawful land-grabbing in Cambodia and to
promote peaceful resolution where conflict does arise. The Ministry of Land
Management has carried out the work to develop a comprehensive legal and policy
framework relating to land rights and housing issues.
d. Political Rights:
Cambodian citizens of either
sex of at least 18 years old have the write to vote and those of at least 25
years old have the right to stand as candidates for the election. Provisions
restricting the right to vote and to stand as candidate shall be defined in the
electoral law. Cambodian citizens shall be given the right to participate
actively in the political life and shall have full rights to choose any
political party they like as well as to change from one party member to another
one. The citizens shall have the rights to create associations and political
parties. There is no restriction on the number of political parties and all
political parties shall have equal rights to use state media for their campaign
during the national election.
e. Freedom Expression Rights:
The Cambodia’s constitution provides
for freedom of expression for all Cambodians. Any suggestions from the people
shall be given full consideration by the organs of State. The government has
created a place for freedom expression which allows its citizens to express
their peaceful demonstration in accordance with the law. The Trade Unions of Workers
and civil societies have their full freedom to do strike or non-violent
demonstration. The Ministry of Interior has set a good example in its effort to
reform the correctional system, to establish a mechanism to prevent torture,
and to develop and implement the law on peaceful demonstrations. More recently,
the Ministry has been engaging in fruitful consultation with civil society
organizations on the draft NGO law.
It is hoped that this
consultation will be pursued to bring the draft law into conformity to
international norms. The Cambodian Human Rights Committee is finalizing the
Government’s report to the United Nations on its obligations under the
International Convention on Civil and Political Rights and is working to
implement the recommendations of the Universal Periodic Review.
Cambodia has
ratified more human rights treaties than many other States and has accepted all
recommendations made during the Universal Periodic Review process in the Human
Rights Council. It is a forward-looking country with a democratic Constitution.
Obviously, it has different challenges to other States, given its turbulent
history. Cambodia
can aspire to be a model, aiming to live by better examples. The presence of
the UN and its human rights mechanisms in the country is a good thing for
Cambodia.
2. The Challenges of Human Rights
After we see the progresses of human
rights in Cambodia in which it is the improvement of Cambodian citizens
standard of living with the term of development and build free market and new infrastructures,
but to answer these progresses we also see some disadvantages of promote human
rights and protect human rights violation and abuses. Moreover, after the Cambodia
government issued the economic land concession or other privatization, the human
right violation also happened on right own property right and so on. When the
citizens have problems with these issues, social well fair is also lack of
quality. To understand more on the challenges of human rights in Cambodia we
will focus on some factors or sector to examine these issues
a.
Judicial
System
The court system consists of
the Supreme Court, an appellate Court, 19 provincial courts, 2 municipal
courts, and a military court. Three provinces have no courts; cases from these
provinces are heard by the neighboring provincial courts. The twelve-judge Appeal
Court, located in Phnom Penh, hears all cases appealed from the courts of first
instance. Three-judge panels conduct complete re-trials on questions of fact
and law and may conduct additional investigations. The Supreme Court is
composed of a President, a Vice- President and several judges. A five-judge
panel hears questions of law for cases appealed for the first time from the
Appeal Court and a nine-judge panel hears questions of fact and law in the case
of a second appeal, where the Appeals Court did not follow the cassation
judgment of the Supreme Court. The Court also hears general revision complaints
against final and binding verdicts, on the basis that new evidence has emerged
which establishes the innocence of the convicted person and was not available
at the time of the trial. Judicial appointments are made by the Supreme Council
of Magistracy, which is also responsible for discipline within the profession.
Training of court professionals is undertaken by a new Royal Academy for the
Legal Profession, which contains a School for Judges and a School for Clerks.
There is a professional Cambodian Bar Association but no association of judges.
The 1993 Constitution of the
Kingdom of Cambodia states in article 128 that the judiciary shall be an independent
power that shall guarantee and uphold impartiality and protect the rights and
freedoms of the citizens. Article 129 states that justice is exercised in the
name of the citizens of Cambodia in accordance with the procedures and laws in
force.
Only judges have the right to
adjudicate and shall exercise their duties wholeheartedly and conscientiously
with due respect for the law. Article 130 states that judicial power shall not be
granted to the executive or legislative branches and article 131 that criminal
prosecutions are the sole preserve of the Department of Public Prosecutions.
Article 132 of the Constitution gives the King the role of guarantor of the
independence of the judiciary and mandates the Supreme Council of Magistracy to
assist him in this task.
The Constitution requires that
the statuses of judges and prosecutors be defined in separate laws. This
legislation has still not been adopted. The draft law is currently stalled for
a number of reasons. One of them seems to be the disagreement between the
Supreme Council of Magistracy and the Ministry of Justice about the Ministry’s
role in controlling prosecutors: the Ministry proposes that it should control
the Department of Public Prosecutions in line with practice in France; the Supreme
Council claims that since prosecutors are judges and judges are independent
under the Constitution, they should come under the control of the Supreme
Council. One consequence of the failure to adopt this law is that the three
members of the Supreme Council who should be elected by judges from amongst
their peers have been appointed by the Ministry of Justice since the Supreme Council
was created. The Constitution states that elections cannot take place until the
Law on the Status of Judges has been promulgated.
It is perhaps indicative of
the challenges facing Cambodia that, seventeen years after the Constitution was
promulgated, the organic law organizing the court system is still not in place.
It should be noted here that the law has been also been delayed in part over disagreements
on how to establish a commercial court or commercial chambers required under
the terms of Cambodia’s entry into the World Trade Organization.
However, there are many words from Cambodia citizens
say that the rich is the winner and the poor is the loser, so all victims never
want to fine justice through Cambodia courts. Although the Constitution of Cambodia
provides for the separation of powers between the three main organs of the State, in
practice the distinction between these organs is blurred and the executive
branch dominates the judiciary whether by providing resources to the judiciary or in making
appointments to various judicial positions. This remains a key challenge for the country in
implementing the rule of law and in promoting and protecting people’s rights. The Special
Rapporteur is aware of the impact of the tragic past on the judiciary and notes that the efforts
made in reconstructing it have been commendable. However, the judiciary still has a long way to go
to assert and establish its independence, and the executive and the legislative branches have to
adopt a number of measures to enable it to do so. On a number of occasions and especially in
high-profile political cases, the judiciary seems to have allowed itself to be used or manipulated for
political or purely private purposes.
The courts are not trusted by
the people to provide impartial justice. As a consequence, citizens seek alternative methods of
remedy which tend to undermine further the rule of law. In land disputes, communities tend to
bypass the court system, petitioning top leaders to intervene on their behalf, reinforcing
the already overwhelming executive authority. Prior to the war, Norodom Sihanouk was the
focus of these petitions. Nowadays, groups of villagers are almost permanently encamped
outside the gates of the Prime Minister’s residences in Kandal province and in Phnom Penh.
Interventions by the Prime Minister are frequent in response to direct
petitions by private citizens. The quality of legal argumentation in the courtroom is disappointing and
often nonexistent. Until recent
reforms made it a requirement for reasoned arguments to be included in judgments, judges rarely supported
their verdicts with a sound analysis of the law. The line of logic running
through some legal arguments is often difficult to follow. Even in high-profile
cases such as those concerning Ms. Mu Sochua, a member of parliament and leading
member of the main opposition party, the courts at all levels failed to provide
convincing legal reasoning for their judgments.
b.
Freedom of
Expression
The Cambodia authorities have not lifted its ban on peaceful public
demonstrations although such an event is one form of exercising the right to
freedom of expression. This right is among all the human rights that Cambodia
has undertaken to observe and respect as part of its obligation under the Paris
Peace Agreement of 1991. All these human rights are binding on Cambodia as its
constitution of 1993 on Chapter III of the constitution about rights and
obligation of Cambodian citizens.
The police have enforced this ban with the use of force. In December
2007, a riot police force armed with shields and batons chased and assaulted a
group of Buddhist monks who went to hand a petition to Vietnamese embassy in
Phnom Penh demanding the release of their fellow monk of the same indigenous
origin from prison.
Moreover, the police and local authorities have seemed
to be more tolerant towards the holding of public forums held in different
provinces and have not used force when enforcing their ban. Every demonstration
is banned because of the claim of social security from the police.
c.
Land
Grabbing
In recent years, land
grabbing and land disputes have been on the rise and have become more violent across
the country. Invariably, the rich and the powerful have connived to forcibly
evict the poor from their land. According to Human Rights Watch, as of August
2006, in Phnom Penh 1000 families had been forcibly evicted during the year and
1600 more were facing the same forced evictions and resettlement. In ten
provinces alone, based on publicly known cases, another 1231 families were
known to be also facing forced evictions. As mentioned earlier, invariably
there were no eviction judgments from courts, or if there were, these judgments
had been secured through the political pressure and/or financial influence on
the courts. The authorities simply issued eviction orders and sent armed police
forces to execute them.
The forced evictions in
question contained numerous incidents of inhuman treatment. In early May 2006,
the Cambodian government began to evict over 1000 families from a village on a
bank of the Bassac River, near the compound of the Russian Embassy in Phnom
Penh. Workers hired from outside-demolished houses in the area, beginning with
rented houses. A strong police force with riot shields and electric batons
protected this demolition work and subdued resistance from the residents. This
eviction immediately made many poor tenants homeless. These homeless people had
to sleep in the open during the night. Local officials pressurized them to
leave and denied humanitarian agencies access to distribute tents. They even
smashed cooking pots and pans. Most of the evictees were poor people. This
village was cleared to hand the land over to Sour Srun Enterprises Co. Ltd., reportedly
for the construction of a shopping mall.
Moreover, in the provinces,
evictions were no less brutal. Below are only a few of the many cases of such
evictions. There has been persistent criticism of the Cambodian government's
land concession policy, notably concerning its lack of transparency and the
development and beautification of Phnom Penh at the expenses of the livelihood
of people. There has also been criticism of its violation of the right to
housing and shelter of the victims of land grabbing, and of the use of force
during evictions, as well as the government's refusal to give adequate
compensation to the victims in question. The dumping of Phnom Penh evictees in
resettlement areas that are far away from their work and which lack social infrastructure,
such as schools, health centres and public utilities, have also been harshly criticised.
To many people, all the forced evictions of Phnom Penh people cited above are reminiscent
of the forced evacuation of Phnom Pen in April 1975, when the Khmer Rouge
forced all townsfolk at gun point to leave the city and to live in hovels in
the countryside.
Therefore, land grabbing has
remained a hot issue, when the rich and powerful, though illicit means acquire
land belonging to weaker and poorer people. It has affected and continues to
affect the livelihood of hundred of thousands of people in urban and rural
alike, the ethnic majority and monitories alike, when these people have been
evicted or are likely to be evicted, most often by force, from their homes and
lands without jus compensation as the country’s constitution has prescribed.
Amnesty international has estimated in its report published in February 2008,
that at least 150,000 Cambodians across the country are known to live at risk
of being evicted in the wake of development projects, land disputes and land
grabbing.
3. Solution
According to reality in
Cambodia, human rights are still the issue for the government and its own
society to focus on. However, it was declaredas a democratic country but in
fact there are still some lacking facilitates help to protect the real human
rights. As far as we go through the problems of human rights abuse, we can
imagine of the solutions that are expected to be taken action.
a.
Education
rights
The standard of the
school as well as the rights for children to go to school is still missing and
really challenging with so many unfair aspects. As we can see that there are
some scholarship not only within the country but also abroad, have been sold to
some rich people that cause the poor people don’t have chance to challenge with
their real ability. This is the corruptions that violate the human right of
property discrimination.
Government should
strengthen the system of scholarship perceiving to the students who have real
ability not money to buy the scholarship for the first year and study costless
the year after. Moreover, government should encourage to both genders of
student to study what they like, no matter what the subject is belong to girl
or boy. It is a good way to keep people stay closer to their rights. When there
is a difficulties in choosing the subjects, government should recommend some
public service to help them select what their talent can link the best to their
future career. This is a good way to build the human resource as well as
human’s confidence which effected to their human rights.
b.
Freedom of
expression
It is very important
for some truth to be revealed in public. However, some speech that is not
effect to one another should be made. For example, journalist should not be
arrested in some case of expression the truth that involved in political but
not violating to one’s another personality or privacy. Government should ensure
their right for the public to know what happen around the country.
On the other hand,
opposite party’s voice is really affected to the political decision. Because if
one society always has a positive voice, it will never be stable because of the
power will be in only one place and the whole society will seem to be in the
communist side. That is why there needs the voice of opposite party to make
sure that all the political solution is right and efficiency.
c.
Land dispute
In developing country,
normally there are a lot of land problems in the rural area or in the economic
area. Some casesare really serious because of the wrong decision from
government to their people. People need a fair compensation for their lost
property that is own by them for a long time ago, but it useless and will be
disappear in just only few hours of agreement between government and another
invested party.
Therefore, it is a big
picture of violation to the group of people and their rights. They have their
own right to ask for their legal property that was approved and recognizedby
the government officer. For example, the case in Beung Kok is really serious
and need to study the effective and the problem of the violation to the
citizens. They do not ask for their property like house or land back but just a
good and fair compensation from government and the invested company party,
because they have all the documentaries which approved by the government
officer that their land is belong to them.
However, there are some
necessary Advisory services and technical assistance for Cambodia from Human Rights
Council as the following:
1.
Expresses
its concern about some areas of human rights practices in Cambodia and urges
the Government of Cambodia
(a) To continue to
strengthen its efforts to establish the rule of law, including through the
adoption and implementation of essential laws and codes for establishing a
democratic society, and its efforts at judicial reform, especially to ensure
the independence, impartiality, transparency and effectiveness of the judicial
system as a whole;
(b) To enhance
its efforts to combat corruption, particularly by early enactment of an
anti-corruption law and its implementation;
(c) To continue
to address, as a matter of priority, inter alia, the problem of impunity, and
to enhance its efforts to investigate urgently and to prosecute, in accordance
with due process of law and international human rights standards, all those who
have perpetrated serious crimes, including violations of human rights;
(d) To enhance
its efforts to resolve equitably and expeditiously land ownership issues in a
fair and open manner in accordance with the 2001 Land Law, by strengthening the
capacity and effectiveness of relevant institutions such as the National
Authority for Land Dispute Resolution and Cadastral Committees at the national,
provincial and district levels; (e)
To continue to create an environment conducive to the conduct of legitimate
political activity and to support the role of non-governmental organizations in
order to solidify democratic development in Cambodia;
(f) To continue
its efforts to improve human rights, especially those of women and children,
and to make additional efforts, in concert with the international community, to
combat key problems such as human trafficking, issues related to poverty,
sexual violence, domestic violence and sexual exploitation of women and
children;
(g) To take all
steps to meet its obligations under international human rights instruments and
to further strengthen its cooperation with United Nations agencies, including
the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, including
through enhanced dialogues and development of joint activities;
(h) To continue
to promote the rights and dignity of all Cambodians by providing political,
economic and social freedom through the continuous and enhanced implementation
of its rectangular strategy and various reform programs;
2.
Invites the
Secretary-General, agencies of the United Nations system present in Cambodia
and the international community
(a) Drafting
various laws necessary for protecting and promoting human rights;
(b)
Capacity-building to strengthen legal institutions, including by improving the
quality of judges, prosecutors, lawyers and court staff;
(c)
Capacity-building to strengthen national institutions for criminal
investigation and law enforcement as well as providing equipment necessary for
these ends;
(d) Assisting
assessment of progress in human rights issues;
In order to precede the
result, first we need to knowthose problems not only the government and other
organizations but also those citizensthat need to make solution and taken
action. The citizens,who should recognized their ownrights and human rights law
should study more about how that law can protect, prevent and ensure of the
human rights abuse. This means that you can judgethe people or business party
who try to cheat on the law and violate on your rights.
However, human rights
in Cambodia is still challenging which means that some case the problems that
can be defined but cannot be found the right decision to that problems. Because
of the law enforcement is still weak and the government still lack some ability
to help its own citizens, therefore, some problem seem to take longer time to
solve which still consider as the main issue that violate to human rights.
IV. Conclusion and recommendation
Through this
research paper, we can see that human rights in Cambodia needed to improve more
on all sectors. It has nevertheless shown that Cambodia's performance regarding
human rights recent years was not any nearer the international norms and
standards it had adhered to as its obligation under the Paris Peace Accords of
1991, 15 years after these accords were reached. Cambodia's rule of law
institutions, especially the judiciary, remained underdeveloped and under
executive control. This control became stronger when the ruling party, the CPP,
to which almost all judges and prosecutors belong, became the overwhelming
dominant party in the country in 2006. The country has lost all checks and
balances. These institutions remain instruments of repression in the hands of the
government and its powerful prime minister, instead of striving to become
protectors of the rights and freedoms of the Cambodian people, as provided for
in the country's constitution. The judiciary failed to gain any public trust
and people continued to look elsewhere for justice, including through protests,
although they have to brave brutal crackdowns by the police force in such
cases.
The abuses that
are highlighted in this report derived mainly from malfunctions within these
institutions. The main task required in order to ensure the observance of and
respect for human rights therefore remains the establishment of an independent,
competent and impartial judiciary, as provided for in the Paris Peace Accords,
the international human rights instruments Cambodia has adhered to, and the
country's constitution. This task lies with Cambodia one the one hand, and
State-signatories to those accords, UN agencies and international aid agencies
on the other. In this regard, the ratification of the First Optional Protocol
to the ICCPR and the Optional Protocol to CAT that the Cambodian government as
already signed, could be a catalyst to speed up this process. Victims of violations
could then resort to the respective committees of these international legal instruments
in order to seek redress, thereby opening up much-needed channels for these committees
to bring about changes in these institutions.
The human rights
situation described above in not comprehensive, but it shows no strong
indications of any real precondition under which human rights can flourish in
the future. The rule of law that is essential for the protection of human
rights, as recognized by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, is simply
not there when Cambodia is essentially rule by degree.
The concept of
equality before the law and equal protection by the law has not taken in
Cambodia yet. Courts have yet to gain independence and be imbibed with
impartiality and have yet to discharge their constitutional duty to protect
human rights. They have yet to assert themselves as state institutions and not
serve a tool for the rich and powerful to promote and protect their interests
at the expense of the opposition to the government, and the poor and weak.
Cambodia
authorities, the Cambodia Bar Association, the Cambodia civil society, eh field
Office of the High Commissioner for human rights, the Special Rapporteur on
human rights in Cambodia, and donor countries should make more efforts and
concentrate these efforts primarily on establishing the rule of law and
building strong functional institution for it in Cambodia.
The issue of
economic land concession is popular these days for Cambodia human rights abuse
in which private companies used government police to against, force, and remove
people from their without respect to right to own property. After we discuss on
some progresses and challenges of human rights in Cambodia we also can give
some recommendation to this topic both government and society.
The Cambodian
government should abandon the rule by degree and embrace the rule of law, buy
resorting to the due process of law, to eradicate land grabbing. It should
protect the property right of the Cambodia people and enact a law on
confiscations of land for the purpose of public interests with an independent
and impartial committee for fair and just compensation for people affected by
such confiscation.
The Cambodian
government should ensure that the cadastral commissions for the adjudication of
conflicts related to unregistered land have functional independence and
adequate resources including expertise to perform their respective duty. It
should ensure that, before making any land concession, people likely to be affected
are consulting, and fair and just compensation are offered to them.
Furthermore, adequate land should be made available to the poor and the
landless for their housing and cultivation.
The freedoms of
expression are fundamental rights, and Cambodian authorities should consider
them so and give them priority over inconveniences the exercise of them might
cause. The police should consider serving and protecting people as their core
value, and instead of banning for instance peaceful demonstrations and protests,
they should secure law and order die demonstrators or protesters to exercise
their right.
V. References:
1.
The
Declaration of Human rights in the Cambodia Constitution, Published
by the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Cambodia
County Office, July 2008
2.
Paris Principles on National Human Rights
Institution, Published by the Office of the United Nations High
Commissioner for Human Rights Cambodia Country Office, November 2006
3.
Universal Declaration of Human Rights, This
publication is produced by the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner
for Human Rights on the occasion of the sixtieth anniversary of the adoption of
the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948 and the fifteenth anniversary
of the adoption of the Constitution of the Kingdom of Cambodia in 1993.
4.
The
Politics of Human Rights in East Asia, by Kenneth Christie and Denny Roy,
First published 2001 by Pluto Press 345 Archway Road, London N6 5AA and 22883
Quicksilver Drive, Sterling, VA 20166–2012, USA.
5.
The state of human rights in eleven Asian nations in
2007 – Cambodia ASIAN HUMAN RIGHTS COMMISSION
6.
RESTRICTIONS ON THE FREEDOM OF ASSEMBLY IN CAMBODIA A
LICADHO Briefing paper, December 2005.
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