Law of Cambodia

[2] Confirming the conformity of laws in the process of being adopted or already ratified falls under the authority the Constitutional Council at the request of the King, the Prime Minister, the president of one of the two parliamentary chambers, a quarter of the senators, a tenth of the deputies or a court.

First on October 14, 1994, the constitution was amended to make up for the frequent stays of Norodom Sihanouk abroad: the function of Head of State and his power of signature of official documents could be delegated in the absence of the king.

[7] On January 19, 2005, the constitutional revision was related to the quorum necessary for the opening of the sessions of the parliament and the investiture of the government,[8] then, on March 9, 2006, a change in voting procedures in the National Assembly and the Senate.

The 1993 constitution stipulates that:[14] laws and normative acts (…) remain in force until new texts modify or repeal them, with the exception of provisions contrary to the spirit of the present ConstitutionIn fact, the United Nations Transitional Authority in Cambodia and the constitution took over a practice already in force in most of the regimes resulting from the various political upheavals that Cambodia went through in the second half of the 20th century keeping the legislative apparatus of their predecessors for a while rather than creating a break and a legal void.

[23] However, if according to the constitution the initiative for laws is shared between the parliaments and the government, in practise it has been left to the latter which, before submitting a draft, has it prepared by the competent ministerial cabinet and reviewed by a group of lawyers.

[24] The constitution states that:[25] judges must fulfill their duties in strict compliance with the lawJudges are therefore content to apply the texts and when they justify their decisions, they limit themselves to setting out the facts relating to the case.

It is supported in this in rural areas by local offices located at the level of phum or villages and srok or districts and representative of traditional social values.

The decisions of the provincial and municipal courts may be appealed within two months after the verdict is pronounced except those decreed by default which may be challenged within two weeks after the convicted person has knowledge of his sentence.

The second argument which was true in 1993, seems less accurate years later, as the teaching of the Royal School of the judiciary founded by Kim Sathavy in 2002 makes the complexities of public law more accessible to judges.

[31] Cambodia's accession to the World Trade Organization on October 13, 2004, compelled it to pass a number of laws to ensure free competition and regulate investments, but these international texts did not apply to local businesses for which they were too complex and costly.

[33] This business code also suffers, like other areas of Cambodian law, from competition between donor countries, each wishing to take advantage of the opportunity offered by development aid to try to impose its model.

Thus the World Bank, strongly inspired by the Anglo-Saxon countries, regularly calls into question the legal framework based on the French system and which is considered as a brake on productivity and investment, generating more unemployment and encouraging corruption.

The World Bank advocates a deregulation that would eliminate or reduce what is perceived as obstacles to economic development, such as the existence of a minimum wage, the intervention of the courts in commercial matters or the absence of protection of creditors.

Thus the project to create a commercial court under the aegis of the World Bank was stopped at the last moment because the procedures it provided for went against the rules of the civil rights and criminal law prepared by the Japanese and the French.

[36] A major element already mentioned in the Cambodian context is the reduced use of the judiciary due to the still very much alive tradition of favoring a negotiated solution to settle a dispute, rather than relying on the decisions of a justice that many consider incompetent, expensive, ignorant of local customs and whose moral authority is not always recognized.

[37] Another problem linked to local traditions concerns the religious aspect and the conviction that the faults committed in one existence will be expiated after death, possibly in a new life.

Thus, Tep Vong, Buddhist Patriarch of Cambodia publicly denounced the Khmer Rouge Tribunal considering that any form of judgement would be an act of revenge and that the penalty they could incur would never be equal to what their karma will reserve for them after their death.