At least 26 defendants told the Appeal Court over two years that they faced violence or torture by authorities to force confessions, according to a trial monitoring report by the Cambodian Center for Human Rights.
A jailed Mother Nature environmentalist and Khmer Thavrak activist appeared at the Appeal Court on Tuesday, where a judge denied requests to drop their cases or grant bail, while three female activists from the groups were unable to attend due to flooding in their prison.
The Appeal Court on Wednesday upheld a lower court decision to arrest and jail unionist Rong Chhun over his claims that Cambodia had ceded land to Vietnam, denying him release on bail as his supporters continued to rally outside the court.
The Cambodian Center for Human Rights has called on judges to “inform and fully explain” to all defendants both their rights during trial and the charges against them, citing a 16-month review of proceedings at the Phnom Penh Appeal Court.
The Appeal Court has upheld a lower court’s decision to accept new evidence from the prosecution in Kem Sokha’s stalled treason trial, although a lawyer for the opposition leader on Thursday expressed doubt that the evidence would incriminate him.
The Appeal Court will hear arguments next week from Kem Sokha’s lawyers, who are opposing a decision by lower court judges to accept new evidence submitted by the prosecution in the opposition leader’s stalled treason trial.
The Appeal Court on Tuesday rejected an appeal made by two former Radio Free Asia journalists to stop the reinvestigation of an espionage case against them more than two years after they were charged.
The Appeal Court on Monday upheld the Phnom Penh municipal court’s decision to reinvestigate the case against two former Radio Free Asia reporters.
A newly launched government service for free legal consultations could be part of the solution to the country’s judicial woes, experts said, though they also cautioned that the committee overseeing it would need to be transparent and take further steps in the future.
Observers say three new appeal courts will remain as unjust as the current system unless improvements are made to ensure the judiciary’s fairness and independence.
The Phnom Penh court on Thursday sought ways to streamline the mass trial of more than 130 opposition supporters in the face of missed names, crammed-in defendants and complaints that the accused had no information about what they were accused of.
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