Gov’t deflects blame over rights committee

OFFICIALS from the government’s Cambodian Human Rights Committee (CHRC) yesterday appeared to lay the blame for the delayed establishment of an independent rights body at the feet of civil society.

The institution, which would promote human rights awareness and be politically independent, has long been called for by observers, including the former UN Special Rapporteur.

While Prime Minister Hun Sen backed the creation of a National Human Rights Institution (NHRI) in 2006, CHRC Deputy Director Ith Rady yesterday told some 200 social science students that a draft law to establish the body had been held up due to disagreements between NGOs and the government.

“We let the representatives of NGOs draft the bill and until now, the draft has been drafted, but the discussion [with] NGOs has not found a compromise yet,” Rady said.

His fellow deputy director, Chet Chealy, also blamed a rotating door of civil society representatives used to debate the drafted legislation.

“We hand the duty to the civil society since they usually criticise us, [saying] that we do not respect the human rights, so [we said] you draft the bill then,” he said.

“It has been 10 years already and nothing has been done. Sometimes, this person leads and sometimes another person leads . . . no one takes the responsibility.”

Katta Orn, another member of CHRC, said that the second draft submitted by NGOs gave “too much power to the [NHRI] body”.

Chak Sopheap, of the Cambodian Center for Human Rights, said NGOs were still working on the draft legislation but declined to comment further.

Licadho’s Am Sam Ath said draft talks had been postponed, but could not give reasons why.

“There are many NGOs [involved] and we have different views, so I could not answer for them,” he said.