Cambodia Needs A Rights-Based NGO Law

Scoop.co.nz (New Zealand)
Thursday, 5 March 2009

Press Release: Asian Human Rights Commission

In 1991 two accords were concluded to end the war that had ravaged Cambodia for so many years. These accords assigned the UN to keep the peace, organize the election of a new government and administer Cambodia for some 18 months, in 1992 and 1993, for all these purposes.

The UN presence then gave birth to a civil society in Cambodia, previously a communist country, when local NGOs were successively created to do human rights and development work. Together with the peace accords and international assistance, the UN laid a solid foundation for the civil society’s further development after the end of its mandate.

Nowadays, despite the lengthy and tortuous procedures for their creation through some ten layers of administrative units from the grassroots to the top of the Ministry of Interior, there are nevertheless some 2000 NGOs on the ministry’s register. Thanks to their work across the country NGOs have become an integral part of Cambodia’s social fabric.

However, over recent years, the government has imposed a number of restrictions on their activities, especially the activities of human rights NGOs. In 2005 the Ministry of the Interior issued a set of guidelines to instruct all commune authorities (grassroots authorities), among other things, that all activities of NGOs and other associations and civil society organisations, "must have cooperation from provincial or municipal governors" and "all invitations to provincial, district and commune officials to attend any seminar or training sessions must have the approval" of these governors as well.

These guidelines in effect restrict the activities of NGOs as their members have to travel potentially long distances to the offices of provincial or municipal governors and get through lengthy bureaucracies to get such approvals. Cambodian local authorities have rigorously enforced these guidelines and have banned or interrupted many NGO activities, especially the holding of public forums for the public to debate issues affecting their livelihood.

Now the government has set out to regulate NGOs through an act of parliament. Upon its election in July 2008, with a substantially increased majority, 90 out of the total seats of 123, the government has made this law one of the three laws to be enacted as a matter of priority, the other being the penal code and the anti-corruption law. The reason for this urgency was the government’s concern that their funding could come from terrorist groups. Prime Minister Hun said in September 2008: “We have a concern that sometimes under so and so NGO, financial assistance has been provided for terrorist activities, take for instance the Al Um Quran under which Ham Bali hid himself in Cambodia.”

This reason is hardly plausible since the control of funding for terrorist activities are already adequately dealt with by the Anti-Terrorism Law enacted in 2007 (Chapter 11 on funding and aid for terrorism). The real reason behind the need for such a law is more likely the anti-NGO sentiment still prevailing in the ruling Cambodian People’s Party, a former communist party. In 2006 Heng Samrin, the President of the National Assembly and Honorary President of the ruling party, said: “Today, so many NGOs are speaking too freely and do things without a framework. When we have a law, we will direct them.” After the July 2008 election Heng is still holding the two positions.

As spelt out clearly in Cambodia’s Constitution, freedom of association is one of the fundamental rights of the Cambodian people, and, according to the same constitution, there needs to be a law to determine this right.

However, this law should further guarantee and protect this fundamental right. It should faithfully reflect Cambodia’s international human rights obligations under the peace accords mentioned above and other international human rights instruments, and also its own constitution.

The accords say, among other things, that “all persons in Cambodia shall enjoy the rights and freedoms embodied in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and other relevant international human rights instruments” and “Cambodia undertakes “to support the right of all Cambodia citizens to undertake activities that would promote and protect human rights and fundamental freedoms".

The Universal Declaration, which Cambodia has incorporated in its constitution, guarantees the right to freedom of association. The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, to which Cambodia is a party, also guarantees this right and elaborates it further “1. Everyone shall have the right to freedom of association with others, including the right to form and join trade unions for the protection of his interests. 2. No restrictions may be placed on the exercise of this right other than those which are prescribed by law and which are necessary in a democratic society in the interests of national security or public safety, public order (ordre public), the protection of public health or morals or the protection of the rights and freedoms of others."

The same NGO law should not in any way curtail the Cambodian people’s “right to participate actively in the political, economic, social and cultural life of the nation”, a right that is guaranteed and protected under Article 35 of their Constitution.

Cambodian lawmakers should be reminded that civil society is essential for democracy and development, and their country is supposed to be a liberal democracy according of its Constitution. The regulation of NGOs should not mean to “direct them” as National Assembly Chairman Heng Samrin has said.

In designing the NGO law, those Cambodian lawmakers should get inspiration, for instance, from the South African Non Profit Organisations Act of 1997. Like the South African Law, the Cambodian law should be designed, for instance, “to provide for an environment in which (NGOs) can flourish” with no unjustified restrictions on their activities, and “to establish an administrative and regulatory framework within which (NGOs) can conduct their affairs”. The same law should also require “every state organ to determine and co-ordinate the implementation of its policies and measures in a manner designed to promote, support and enhance the capacity of nonprofit organisations to perform their functions.”


About AHRC: The Asian Human Rights Commission is a regional non-governmental organisation monitoring and lobbying human rights issues in Asia. The Hong Kong-based group was founded in 1984.