Presenting a united front, leaders from six umbrella civil society organizations representing dozens of NGOs in Cambodia hand-delivered a document to the National Assembly yesterday detailing their recommendations for an overhaul of the government’s proposed anticorruption law—including proposals to make the country’s future anticorruption authorities truly independent .
Echoing requests made by opposition lawmakers, the groups also recommended that the National Assembly delay today’s scheduled debate on the draft law by one month.
“We are concerned about this law because we could not discuss and give some advice to the Assembly on time,” said Koul Panha, executive director of the Committee for Free and Fair Elections.
Though welcoming the introduction of the draft law to the Assembly, the UN Development Program last night also added its voice of concern about the short amount of time—less than a week—made available to lawmakers to analyze the law ahead of today’s debate.
“As with any law to be debated in parliament, we believe that sufficient time needs to be allocated for public consultation among all stake holders,” UNDP said in a statement.
It appeared unlikely that any delay will be granted. Council of Ministers’ spokesman Phay Siphan said last night that he was expecting the extraordinary session of the National Assembly to proceed this morning as planned.
“If members want to delay then they can request at the start of the debate” today, Mr Siphan said.
While agreeing that an anticorruption law is vital for Cambodia, the civil society groups made five key recommendations in their letter to the Assembly yesterday, including a proposal for the draft law to be altered to ensure the National Council for Anticorruption is created as an entirely independent institution, made up of members with no political or governmental affiliations.
The groups also recommended that the anticorruption council have a separate budget from the government and that members of the council serve in their roles for at least nine years, whereas the current draft only recommends a five-year tenure.
They called for the law to ensure that the public has access to the details provided by public office holders who will be required to disclose their assets and debts to anticorruption authorities.
The final recommendation seeks to ensure that corruption whistleblowers are encouraged to provide information to the anticorruption authorities.
While the draft law states that information from whistleblowers will be treated confidentially and that those providing information will be protected, the law also states that those providing “false information” will face defamation charges, which could attract up to six months jail and a fine of one million riel, or about $250.
“If there is no witness, how can they fight corruption?” said longtime human rights campaigner Pung Chiv Kek, adding that the threat of jail terms would scare possible whistleblowers from coming forward.
Organizations who combined to draft the set of recommendations were the Cambodian Human Rights Action Committee, the Coalition for Integrity and Social Accountability, the NGO Forum, the Committee for Free and Fair Elections, the Committee to Promote Women in Politics and NGO-CEDAW, a coalition of groups supporting protections contained in the 1979 UN Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination against Women.
CHRAC Executive Secretary Suon Sareth said he was confident that the Assembly would consider the group’s proposals.
“I think that maybe the National Assembly can make considerations, because this law is so important to the general public,” he said.
Though the opposition has called for a delay, SRP lawmaker Son Chhay said that SRP lawmakers will attend Assembly debate today.
Mr Siphan, the Council of Ministers’ spokesman, said the CPP had held a meeting yesterday at party headquarters to discuss the draft law but said that no proposals to change the law were discussed.
CPP lawmaker Cheam Yeap, who said Monday he would table draft changes to the law at the meeting, could not be reached Monday.
