Japanese Embassy officials have been in discussions with the Cambodian Bar Association in an attempt to resolve the impasse over fees for foreign lawyers at the Khmer Rouge tribunal, bar President Ky Tech said Sunday.
Ky Tech said he had also met earlier this month with officials from the Australian and Canadian embassies to discuss the fees, which the bar wants to impose on foreign lawyers but which the court’s international judges said could lead to unfair trials. “We meet to seek solutions,” Ky Tech said. “But there is no result yet.”
Ky Tech said Sunday he could not reveal the precise contents of the discussions, the most recent of which had been with a senior Japanese diplomat on April 11.
Bar Secretary-General Ly Tayseng said that the fees were on the agenda of the bar council’s meeting to be held Friday.
Eiichi Yoshinaga, a Japanese Embassy administrative staff member, said that no one was available for comment. The Australian Embassy confirmed that Australian diplomats had spoken with Ky Tech but declined further comment.
At a March 23 farewell luncheon, former Japanese Ambassador Fumiaki Takahashi said a joint effort to resolve disagreements was in the interests of the ECCC, Ky Tech said Sunday.
“I understood that he was talking about the fees,” he said. “I agreed with his comment. No one should pressure another. If there is pressure, I will not kneel down,” Ky Tech added.
Officials on the international side of the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia could not be reached Sunday. But ECCC rules committee member Mong Monichariya said, “I just want to declare that, on behalf of the Cambodian members of the committee, I would welcome all resolutions from outside parties.”
Theary Seng, executive director of the Center for Social Development, said outside help might encourage future obstructionism.
“If an external actor decides to step in, it resolves the fees issue but it doesn’t resolve the larger question of the integrity of this process,” she said.
“It is rewarding less-than-stellar behavior.”
