20 February 2017•Update: 20 February 2017
By Lauren Crothers
PHNOM PENH, Cambodia
Lawmakers from Cambodia’s ruling party on Monday amended legislation that would enable the Supreme Court to dissolve political parties and ban party leaders, in a move that was decried by Human Rights Watch as “the triumph of a dictatorship” over the multi-party democracy model.
Amendments to the Law on Political Parties were made by majority members of the ruling Cambodian People’s Party (CPP) in the absence of opposition Cambodia National Rescue Party (CNRP) lawmakers, who boycotted the morning session in protest.
“A draft of the law that became publicly available earlier this month contained articles creating unprecedented powers for the Supreme Court to dissolve political parties and ban political leaders for five years, at the request of the Ministry of Interior, on vague and ill-defined grounds such as potential harm to ‘national unity’,” rights group Licadho said in a statement Monday.
The amended dissolution process does not allow parties to appeal, and does not provide a suspension timeframe.
It bans “individuals with any conviction, spent or unspent, carrying a non-suspended custodial sentence from holding official roles within political parties”, Licadho said.
The co-founder of the CNRP, Sam Rainsy, has been in exile since late 2015 to avoid a defamation prison sentence. Since then, more and more court cases and convictions have piled up against him.
With the threat of the new amendments looming this month, he resigned from his post last week.
But with the amendments now passed by the National Assembly, the next steps are for the CPP-majority Senate to vote, after which it could be signed into law and enacted immediately by the King, Norodom Sihamoni.
In a statement reacting to the passage of the changes, Human Rights Watch said it marked “the final consolidation of absolute power in the hands of [Prime Minister] Hun Sen and the ruling Cambodian People’s Party.
“It's no exaggeration to say that these amendments are like a gun aimed straight at the heart of the opposition CNRP, leaving only the question of when and on what grounds this political execution will take place,” the rights group said, adding that the next step is for representatives from donor countries to meet and decide how they can protect the opposition.
With commune elections set for June 4 and national elections next year, it remains to be seen how weakened the CNRP would be in contesting either.
CNRP spokesman Yim Sovann could not be reached Monday.
