The Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia on Wednesday announced 30 new job opportunities on the Cambodian side of the court.
The tribunal is looking to hire 10 drivers, 10 janitors, six gardeners, three pre-trial chamber clerks and one senior legal coordinator, all of whom will be Cambodian nationals, according to an announcement posted on the court’s Web site and run as an advertisement in local newspapers on Thursday.
“It’s a signal that the trial is moving forward,” tribunal spokesman Reach Sambath said.
The hiring is part of a broad ramping up of the court in anticipation of the adoption of the internal rules, Reach Sambath said.
“We need more staff. When we have the internal rules adopted, it means the trial will be fully operational,” he added.
In June, tribunal judges hope to adopt a controversial set of internal rules, which have stalled most of the court’s work since November.
The tribunal has long planned to have more than 300 staffers—258 Cambodian and 80 to 90 internationals—on board by the end of 2007, court officials said.
Reach Sambath said the Cambodian side now has 141 staffers, and the tribunal’s UN Public Affairs officer, Peter Foster, said that by Monday, the international side of the court would have 60 employees.
Reach Sambath said the hiring bears no relation to a UN Development Program-commissioned audit of the Cambodian human resources section of the tribunal. The results of the audit, commissioned in response to concerns raised over hiring practices, have not been released.
Foster said it was too early to expect the preliminary audit findings to have any effect on the day to day operations of the court. “Whatever is covered in the audit, whatever criticisms, has not had a chance to work its way down into the day-to-day work of the court. Until then, it will be business as usual,” he said.
