NA likely to pass state of emergency law on Friday
THE National Assembly (NA) will hold a plenary session on Friday to debate and potentially approve a draft law outlining how the country would operate under a state of emergency.
The session was a result of a request made by the government to expedite the passing of the law, NA spokesman Leng Peng Long told The Post on Thursday.
NA president Heng Samrin led a Standing Committee meeting on Thursday, during which the decision was made to submit the draft law to the NA for deliberation and approval.
The session also voted on changes to some expert commission members of the NA.
Long said the NA’s Commission on Legislation and Justice and the Commission on Interior, National Defence and Civil Service Administration had reviewed the law and agreed to forward it to the NA.
“The expert commission has rev iewed and researched t he law, and it will be submitted at t he plenar y session for approval. They found the law to be appropriate and they expect it to be approved,” he said.
On Tuesday, Prime Minister Hun Sen said at a special press conference at the Peace
Palace that the possibility of using the law is 0.1 per cent.
“When the situation cannot be controlled despite our appeals, we will enforce the state of emergency.
“To make it short, it will be enforced when people don’t listen to the government’s advice on containing Covid-19,” he said.
Hun Sen maintained that the situation in Cambodia had not yet reached an emergency, but the law still needed to be passed.
He said he didn’t want to use the law because declaring a state of emergency would affect the people’s rights, compound economic troubles and cause other problems.