As the level of legal education rises in Cambodia, so too does the general dissatisfaction over the country’s judicial system, said Lee U Meng, program manager for the Community Legal Education Center.
Lee U Meng said he has seen an increase in enrollment for the center’s law classes aimed at members of the general public. But, he said, the more the students learn, the more disgruntled they become.
“They learn about the laws and rights and they complain, ‘This principle doesn’t work in Cambodia. This country is corrupt,’” he said. “In the real world, it’s very hard.”
Some of the biggest complaints arise from bribery in the judicial system and from the length and cost of legal proceedings, he said, adding that some cases can take several years to resolve and cost hundreds of dollars.
But Lee U Meng said he encourages students to be optimistic about the efficacy of legal education. By teaching people about what the laws are, he said, he hopes they may learn to govern themselves. “It takes time,” he said. “If people know the law, they tend to follow the law.”
The Community Legal Education Center is one of a few organizations in Phnom Penh that provide workshops and courses to teach the general public about the country’s laws.
Since it began offering legal education in 1996, the center has seen enrollment rise to about 30 to 60 people for each class. Participants range from government employees, businessmen, union leaders and NGO workers, to monks and nuns, Lee U Meng said.
Courses that have the highest demand are those that involve instruction on Cambodia’s labor laws, targeting factory owners and workers. But many people also attend the “Citizen’s Role in Democracy” courses to learn about their basic rights and obligations, he said.
Sok Sam Oeun, executive director of the Cambodia Defenders Project, said he agreed that people’s legal knowledge is increasing. But, he said, that increase has been minimal.
“Generally, people still do not know about the law,” he said. “More people know they have rights. But if you ask how to implement those rights or how to file a complaint, I don’t think many people know about this.”
Since the country adopted its Constitution only 10 years ago, Cambodia’s legal framework is still young, he said.
While the Defenders Project offers courses for the general public to learn about basic legal procedures, many of its classes and workshops are also geared toward police officers, prosecutors and judges.
Sok Sam Oeun said some of the biggest problems for Cambodia’s legal system lie not with the enforcement of laws, but within the limitations of the laws themselves.
For example, under criminal law, police officers often have only 48 hours to investigate a crime—the time between when an arrest is made and when a suspect must either be charged or released. This is too little time to collect sufficient evidence to properly try a case, he said.
“Police have no power,” Sok Sam Oeun said. “So even if it’s a good judge, how can the judge give a fair judgment?”
He said most people who attend the courses and workshops at the Defenders Project are already aware of the limitations of the legal system, but many police officers still aren’t properly trained to understand the laws that they’re ordered to enforce.
The aim, he said, is to give them a better understanding of the laws and teach them how to work more effectively within those limitations.
“We need to train them, to give power to them,” he said. “At least they need to know some basic concepts of law.”
