Over 2,000 receive free legal aid Illegal snares wreaking havoc on populations in wildlife sanctuaries
THE Bar Association of the Kingdom of Cambodia (BAKC) announced that over a period of 100 days they had provided free legal representation in 2,167 cases on behalf of poor people.
The BAKC further noted that between those cases and free consultations or legal advice for the poor, they had assisted a total of 3,658 clients at municipal and provincial courts across the country.
At a press conference on February 19 detailing their achievements, BAKC president Ly Chantola said: “As volunteer lawyers, we defend cases for these clients not just out of a sense of duty but because it is a part of our profession’s ethical code, established by law.”
However, Chantola also acknowledged that there were some irregularities with a handful of individual lawyers who volunteered to help the poor who may not have done so to the best of their professional abilities.
He said the bar association has mechanisms to review lawyers’ conduct and determine if they need additional training or instruction on how to conduct themselves after taking on a case or if punishment was warranted.
Chantola said the bar has recruited 300 hundred volunteer
lawyers across the country since November last year and that the group’s mission is to represent people in court who are too poor to hire lawyers. Of the 3,658 clients, 312 were women and 787 were minors.
He said that this year, the government would increase the budget for providing legal assistance to the poor by two billion riel ($500,000). These funds are administered by the bar, which reimburses the lawyers for their work in order to ensure equal justice for the poor.
Chantola also said that in order to expand access to these free legal services, the BAKC is requesting that more of the bar’s members participate in
this programme.
He noted that the BAKC is presently studying how to provide more incentives to volunteer lawyers to help society through this programme and other proposed initiatives.
Soeung Sen Karuna, the senior investigative official for rights group Adhoc, said in the past Adhoc used to hear complaints from some people about the poor quality of legal defence provided by volunteer lawyers.
“The BAKC president’s reforms are good and some lawyers do follow good professional ethics, but there are some who think mostly about their own interests and that’s why they are careless when representing poor people,” he said.
Am Sam Ath, deputy director of rights group Licadho, welcomed the BAKC president’s advice for lawyers to follow their professional code of ethics when working on cases for the poor.
“I would ask that the volunteer lawyers defend these cases with transparency and without discrimination. We know that there are a limited number of lawyers available and that there are a lot of people who need help. Despite that, it should always be done effectively, because equal access to competent legal representation is required by the Cambodian legal system,” he said.
THE Ministry of Environment warns that the hunting of wild animals using snares continues to be a serious problem after a Banteng was found dead with a snare wrapped around one of its legs in Preah Vihear province on February 19, according to the ministry’s forest rangers.
Director of Prey Preah Roka Wildlife Sanctuary Bun Soeung said that a group of rangers spotted the Banteng’s carcass – which weighed nearly one tonne – in Sen Rong Roeung III village of Morakot commune in Preah Vihear’s Choam Ksan district.
He said that the banteng was found dead by rangers assigned to the Preah Roka Wildlife Sanctuary on February 19 while they were patrolling the forest and trying to deter poachers from hunting and trapping wild animals.
“The rangers have concluded that the banteng had been dead for perhaps only a day before they spotted it because there wasn’t any stench or visible decay yet. Its right leg was trapped with a snare made from a bicycle brake wire,” he said.
Soeung added the banteng’s carcass was buried by the rangers near the O’kak environmental headquarters. He also said that in just the first two months of this year the rangers had already found and removed 400 such traps in that area.
Environment ministry spokesman Neth Pheaktra wrote a Facebook post concerning the death of the banteng, expressing regret for the loss of the animal whose species is one of the rarest left in the world.
“I become very emotional when I see that Cambodia’s endangered species are still being senselessly hunted and trapped,” he said.
Pheaktra called on all Cambodians to immediately stop consuming all wild animals in order to preserve Cambodia’s natural heritage and to stop breaking the laws of Cambodia by committing the offences of hunting and trapping them.
He noted that people who commit natural resource crimes such as deforestation of wildlife sanctuaries and the hunting, trapping and poisoning of wild animals – or even just the unlawful sale or consumption of wild animal meats – could face a prison term of one to five years in length and a fine of 15 million riel to 150 million riel, under Articles 56 and 61 of the Law on Natural Protected Areas.
TOTAL revenue of business enterprises in Thailand this year will increase 2.1 per cent compared to 2020, but would still be 14.6 per cent lower than in 2019, according to TMB Analytics.
The businesses that have recovered will grow 2.8 per cent this year, businesses that are recovering will grow 2.5 per cent, while those that have not recovered will contract 1.2 per cent.
The recovered businesses span sectors such as food, livestock, rubber, electronics, health, IT and telecommunication, online shopping and delivery.
The businesses TMB Analytics considers as still recovering were in packaging, beverages, construction materials, chemicals, automobiles and auto parts, machine, agricultural products and energy.
Businesses yet to recover were in fields such as paper and printed media, assets, furniture, personal service, aerial transportation, fashion and tourism.
Thailand’s rice export target has been set at six million tonnes this year, the commerce ministry announced.
The target was set after talks between the Foreign Trade Department (FTD) and the Thai Rice Exporters Association,
said FTD director-general Keerati Rushchano.
The target was appropriate but challenging as the Thai rice price was higher than competitors such as India and Vietnam, he said.
Other challenging factors are the goods-container shortage and waning purchasing power of Covid-hit importing countries. Keerati added that the baht exchange rate was the key to meeting the export target. The competitiveness of Thai rice rests on its high quality and on-time export delivery.
Last year Thai rice exports fell 24.54 per cent to 5.72 million tonnes, representing the lowest level in 20 years. The export value dipped 11.23 per cent to $3.727 billion.
The decline in exports last year was blamed mainly on the strengthening baht.
The country also faced competition from Chinese rice exports to South Africa. India was the world’s largest rice exporter last year, shipping 13.61 million tonnes – 5.96 million tonnes to Vietnam, 5.72 million tonnes to Thailand and 3.55 million tonnes to Pakistan.