Hundreds of prisoners denied right to an appeal: NGO report

James O’toole and Chhay Channyda

Phnom Penh Post

HUNDREDS of prisoners nationwide are being denied their appeal right due to a lack of infrastructure and an inefficient bureaucracy, according to a report from local rights group Licadho.

The report, titled In Absentia: The Right to Appeal and Cambodia’s Inmate Transportation Crisis, was released publicly earlier this month after initially being distributed to government officials and rights workers in March. Citing government data, it says that more than 500 prisoners with pending appeals are detained in provincial prisons with little hope of securing transportation to the Kingdom’s only Appeal Court, located in Phnom Penh, for their hearings.

“Due to Cambodia’s near total lack of a long-distance inmate transportation network, these inmates are at grave risk of being denied one of the most basic elements of a fair trial: The right to have a conviction and sentence properly reviewed by a higher tribunal,” the report states.

Heng Hak, director of the prisons department at the Ministry of Interior, said he did not have statistics on the number of prisoners with appeals currently pending, but acknowledged a “lack of services” available for this group.

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