Thursday, June 02, 2005
Court, Cambodian style
Today, as part of my volunteer work at CDP, I watched my first trial at the Cambodian Supreme Court.
Very briefly, the case was to decide who should be the president of the Cambodian Bar Association. A former CDP director and legal aid lawyer (Visal) won the election for president of the association late last year. However the incumbent candidate (Tech) who lost the election, appealed the result to the Court of Appeal and was successful in a closed hearing where no members fo the public were allowed in and the decision was not published. Tech apparently has close ties with the government and some, including human rights groups, are suspicious. Visal appealed the court's decision to take the presidency away from him and that appeal hearing is what I saw today. You can read a bit more detail about the case on this human rights group's web site that I found http://www.ahrchk.net/ua/mainfile.php/2004/895
The Supreme Court room is very simple. The entry is a very normal looking door off a carpark. There was no bowing when entering or leaving the court room as far as I could tell. Perhaps that was because the room was so incredibly packed. Which, compared to the secret appeals court hearing in this matter, is a very good thing. Well, it was perhaps a good thing for Cambodia but it wasn't such a great thing for me. I was squashed in the back corner near the door, sweating and trying very hard not to be pushed backwards and turn all the court lights off with my shoulder.
The 5 judges and many many barristers/lawyers were dressed very similar to in Australian courts. They were clearly very hot. One of the lawyers took his robe off after he finished his address, revealing a polo t-shirt... different to barrister's attire back home. I counted about 8 mobile phones ring in court - a huge no no in Australia.
Of course, the whole proceedings were in Khmer. Fortunately I went with a translator (the librarian from CDP). He is a very eccentric Khmer who seems to model himself on Dr Spock from Star Trek (is he the one with the bowl haircut?) - there is a Star Trek poster in the library and the haircut is suspiciously similar. It was difficult for him to translate everything in the crush of people but I got the general idea of who was speaking for whom. Tech represented himself (or at least he was one of the people to speak for the respondent), I'm not really sure what he said and will have to wait for the Cambodia Daily article tomorrow to summarize for me what I saw... The result should be out soon - stay posted.
Very briefly, the case was to decide who should be the president of the Cambodian Bar Association. A former CDP director and legal aid lawyer (Visal) won the election for president of the association late last year. However the incumbent candidate (Tech) who lost the election, appealed the result to the Court of Appeal and was successful in a closed hearing where no members fo the public were allowed in and the decision was not published. Tech apparently has close ties with the government and some, including human rights groups, are suspicious. Visal appealed the court's decision to take the presidency away from him and that appeal hearing is what I saw today. You can read a bit more detail about the case on this human rights group's web site that I found http://www.ahrchk.net/ua/mainfile.php/2004/895
The Supreme Court room is very simple. The entry is a very normal looking door off a carpark. There was no bowing when entering or leaving the court room as far as I could tell. Perhaps that was because the room was so incredibly packed. Which, compared to the secret appeals court hearing in this matter, is a very good thing. Well, it was perhaps a good thing for Cambodia but it wasn't such a great thing for me. I was squashed in the back corner near the door, sweating and trying very hard not to be pushed backwards and turn all the court lights off with my shoulder.
The 5 judges and many many barristers/lawyers were dressed very similar to in Australian courts. They were clearly very hot. One of the lawyers took his robe off after he finished his address, revealing a polo t-shirt... different to barrister's attire back home. I counted about 8 mobile phones ring in court - a huge no no in Australia.
Of course, the whole proceedings were in Khmer. Fortunately I went with a translator (the librarian from CDP). He is a very eccentric Khmer who seems to model himself on Dr Spock from Star Trek (is he the one with the bowl haircut?) - there is a Star Trek poster in the library and the haircut is suspiciously similar. It was difficult for him to translate everything in the crush of people but I got the general idea of who was speaking for whom. Tech represented himself (or at least he was one of the people to speak for the respondent), I'm not really sure what he said and will have to wait for the Cambodia Daily article tomorrow to summarize for me what I saw... The result should be out soon - stay posted.
