The civil case that 12 minority villagers filed in January against Finance Minister Keat Chhon’s sister Keat Kolney over 450 hectares of disputed Ratanakkiri province land stalled Monday for want of judges, officials said.
Cambodia’s new civil procedure code mandates that three judges preside over the kind of pre-trial hearing that was scheduled for Monday, but only Ratanakkiri Provincial Court Judge An Samnang was present.
Ratanakkiri Provincial Court has only two judges. Yar Narin, the other judge, is also a member of the Supreme Court Chamber of the Khmer Rouge tribunal, which has yet to convene.
An Samnang maintained that he would have presided over the hearing alone, but lawyers from both sides objected.
“I could do it by myself, but in accordance with the lawyers’ request, I followed them,” he said, though lawyers for both sides of the case denied requesting the postponement.
Yar Narin said Monday that two additional judges are needed to serve on the Keat Kolney case in the event that his duties at the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia call him away from Ratanakkiri province.
An Samnang said he would request two judges from the Kompong Cham Provincial Court to preside over the hearing, which has been rescheduled for Oct 19.
He added that this numerical glitch in applying the civil procedure code had not caused many delays yet, but warned that there might be problems in the future.
The Jarai villagers claim they were swindled out of some 450 hectares of O’Yadaw district land to make room for a rubber plantation owned by Keat Kolney. Sourng Sophea, a lawyer at the Community Legal Education Center that is helping represent the villagers, said CLEC had not requested the postponement.
“Because of the new civil procedure, the implementation is not going smoothly,” he said.
Keat Kolney has filed a criminal suit against the villagers accusing them of fraud, maintaining she acquired the land legally. Her lawyer, Chhe Vibol, said he had not requested the postponement.
