Human rights groups called on the government during a conference Tuesday to establish an independent national human rights commission with real power to investigate all violations and violators.
Pointing to several regional countries that already have such commissions despite strong court systems, NGO staff members said Cambodia should follow suit.
“We look at our neighboring countries and developed countries in the world and they have better court systems, but they also have human rights commissions,” said Kim Song of the Khmer Kampuchea Krom Human Rights Association.
“We must have an institution besides NGOs,” he added. “The commission will be more effective because it is at the national level.”
Ny Chakriya of Adhoc said that whenever such commissions are formed, such as the government’s human rights committee, they get co-opted by politicians.
“When we form a committee, political parties always try to take seats,” he said. “There are a lot of commissions already formed but they are not independent.”
But while parliamentarians said the government is committed to such a commission, they warned that it could take a long time to make it a reality.
Justice Ministry Secretary of State Kassie Neou compared such a move to drafting a law, which he said can take up to seven years. He added that finding neutral people to sit on the commission will be difficult.
Om Yentieng, head of the government’s human rights committee and an adviser to Prime Minister Hun Sen, was scheduled to be at the conference but was not present. He could not be reached for comment.
