Can Cambodia's flimsy judiciary effectively try Khmer Rouge?

Can Cambodia's flimsy judiciary effectively try Khmer Rouge?

By Chris Decherd

PHNOM PENH, Cambodia (AP): Sok Sethamony studied law by night. By day he meted out justice as a Phnom Penh city judge. He finally got his university law degree in January -- six years after being appointed to the bench.

Sok Sethamony and a few other judges who studied law while working are the exceptions in Cambodia's tattered judiciary. Most court officials are untrained and unqualified in a legal system that is a hodgepodge of socialist and communist theories and 19th century French and 20th century Anglo-Saxon laws.

But ready or not, Cambodia's judges and prosecutors will play a central role in a United Nations-assisted tribunal that is to try former Khmer Rouge leaders on charges of genocide and crimes against humanity.

In a way, it will be apt justice. In its bloody campaign to impose an agrarian utopia on Cambodia, the communist Khmer Rouge dismantled the legal system and killed nearly every judge and lawyer during its 1975-1979 rule.

But is Cambodia's justice system capable of trying its destroyer?

"There is not one judge or prosecutor capable of contributing to an international tribunal," said Sok Sam Oeun, director of the Cambodian Defenders Project, a non-governmental group that provides legal assistance to the poor.

"They lack education and training ... the system they work in hasn't allowed them any experience in an independent court system," he said.

Critics say corruption is institutionalized and judges routinely take instructions from powerful politicians on how to rule on cases, an observation repeated by the U.S. State Department in its latest report on human rights around the world.

According to Justice Ministry records, more than half of Cambodia's 120 judges haven't finished high school. Only 15 have law degrees, mostly from former Soviet bloc countries.

Of the nation's 55 prosecutors, fewer than 10 have been to law school. Many others were unable to finish high school during Cambodia's wars.

Sok Sethamony, 40, earned a bachelor's degree from the Faculty of Law and Economics' night program, but admits it's a challenge to manage everyday justice in Cambodia.

"We're trying to be better," he said in an interview in his cramped, windowless office at the Phnom Penh court, where he is one of a dozen judges. "Before I used communist theory for my decisions, but Cambodia has changed from a communist system to a democratic one, and I need to learn about capitalist law."

Recovering from the Khmer Rouge decimation has been a long struggle for the judiciary.

After the Vietnamese defeated the Khmer Rouge in 1979, it was discovered that less than a half dozen law school graduates had survived.

The new government installed by the Vietnamese put unskilled people in charge of the courts in a rush to re-establish legal authority across a devastated land. Many of those 1980s appointees remain on the job.

The president of the Bar Association of Cambodia, Ang Eng Thong, said court officials appointed in the 1980s were simple communist party cadre, most of them former school teachers.

"The new regime didn't think about knowledge; they put people in court positions who were loyal to the party," he said.

Among those slotted for legal careers by the Vietnamese-allied government was Sok Sethamony, who survived the Khmer Rouge's "killing fields" period as a farmer and laborer. In 1986-1988, he received socialist legal training in Vietnam, and came back to work as an administrative aide and a law clerk at the Ministry of Justice.

Shortly after being appointed judge in 1995, he started taking night classes to improve his skills and to retain the post.

At least six judges and prosecutors have completed law degrees at the university's night program in the past two years.

Government officials agree the justice system needs reform, but argue it won't be difficult to find qualified people for the Khmer Rouge tribunal.

"It's not difficult to find good ones, people with education," said Ly Vuoch Leng, chief justice of the Appeals Court. "Many have experience gained over many years."

Under legislation passed recently, 12 judges and three prosecutors from Cambodia will sit on the tribunal with nine judges and three prosecutors appointed by the international community. The draft law is now under review by the government, but Prime Minister Hun Sen has said the court could begin work by the end of the year.

The plan was pushed by the United States despite concerns about Cambodia's courts.

Local and international human rights groups, including Amnesty International, fear the tribunal will be vulnerable to political sabotage, incompetence and money-driven corruption -- problems that plague the Cambodian court system every day.

For these reasons, the United Nations had originally wanted the tribunal to be held in a third neutral country but Hun Sen refused.

U.S. officials express confidence that checks and balances will be written into the final trial plan guaranteeing just proceedings.

The prime minister's formerly communist Cambodian People's Party remains in control of the court system. It has been wary of forming a special tribunal, in large part because its leadership, including Hun Sen, are former Khmer Rouge cadre who split from the group in 1977 or 1978.

"The Cambodian people have lost faith in the legal system and they will trust only an international tribunal," said Kek Galabru, founder of the Cambodian League for the Promotion and Defense of Human Rights.

Lawyer Bun Honn, secretary general of the bar association, said some judges haven't grasped the concept of justice.

Bun Honn recalled a 1998 trial when he was delivering his closing arguments for a client charged with kidnapping. Ignoring Bun Honn, the judge talked on his mobile phone for several minutes.

Bun Honn said that when he objected, the judge replied: "Please, silence. You have no right to say this."

The judge was Sok Sethamony, the recent law school graduate.