Legal and judicial system

Myanmar is failing slightly less egregiously to maintain rule of law this year, according to the World Justice Project’s annual Rule of Law Index, which was released on October 20. The slight bump, from an overall score of 0.42 to 0.43 out of 1, is largely ...

Cambodia’s justice system often fails to support children who are victims of and witnesses to crime, many of whom are so terrified to appear in court that they’re unable to give testimony, children’s rights experts said on August 16. “When children are abused, they often respond ...

According to a Senate report accompanying the bill, the vast majority of the recommended budget for Cambodia, $69.9 million of it, would go toward health programs and development assistance. Most of the rest would go to military education and training, demining, anti-terrorism and related programs. ...

The Preah Vihear Provincial Court on 17 May sentenced four men for burning a contentious fence during a 2014 protest against an economic land concession in Kulen district held by the FP Malaysia (Cambodia) Plantation. Lor Chan, the provincial coordinator for rights group Adhoc said,“Even though the ...

Myanmar’s legal profession is aiming to come clean. Lawyers have launched the industry’s first independent, national bar association in Myanmar with the help of a London-based human rights training group and the rule of law committee. The Independent Lawyers’ Association of Myanmar was launched in Nay Pyi ...

Fishermen who were enslaved and in some cases held captive for a decade aboard seafood trawlers in Indonesia are now taking part in a lawsuit against one of the accused companies.  The 14 Myanmar fishermen were flown back to Indonesia to serve as witnesses in the ...

National Assembly President Heng Samrin has become the latest government official to accuse opposition leader Sam Rainsy of defamation, with a lawyer for the ex-president filing a complaint against Mr. Rainsy over false claims that the 1980s communist regime sentenced King Norodom Sihanouk to death. Mr. ...

Countless rape victims, many of them children, have been failed by widespread flaws in Cambodia’s justice system, which have led to a “disturbingly low” number of convictions, a new study by the rights group Licadho has found. In its report, Getting Away With It: The Treatment ...

A Kachin  civil society group is urging relatives of those killed in a landslide near a Hpakant jade mine on 21 November to reject an offer of K600,000 compensation for each victim, and has reiterated threats to press charges against those involved in the mining ...

A Kachin civil society network is seeking to bring charges against the operator of the Hpakant jade mine which dumped the tailings that collapsed in a massive landslide on November 21, according to an area resident. The confirmed death toll from the landslide had risen to ...