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WHY
WAS CDP CREATED? By the
end of the Khmer Rouge's four-year reign, Cambodia's legal
system was in ruins. Almost all of its lawyers had been executed, had
died from starvation, disease, or forced labor, or were living in exile. The Courts and Law Faculty
were abandoned, legal texts burnt. In 1979 only ten lawyers remained in
the country. The Vietnamese backed Socialist government that followed set about re-modeling Cambodia's legal system along socialist lines, but was preoccupied by on-going fighting and civil unrest. At a time when control of the country depended on military force, the one-party regime saw little use for legal training and viewed "justice" as the enforcement of state policy. The concepts of fair trial, due process and individual "rights" were unknown. In 1991, the Paris Peace agreements brought a fragile end to the country's civil war. Following successful democratic elections sponsored by the United Nations, Cambodia's new Constitution was promulgated in 1993 and the process of rebuilding Cambodia's shattered society began. The Cambodian Defenders Project (CDP) was established in 1994 as a project of the International Human Rights Law Group in Cambodia. Although 15 years had passed since the overthrow of the Khmer Rouge, there remained a drastic shortage of trained lawyers in the country. Many police and court officials still employed Communist era tactics of torture, coercion and arbitrary detention against persons accused of crimes. There were no public defenders to defend the rights of the accused and most went to trial without representation of any kind. From its inception, the primary object of the Cambodian Defenders Project was to provide free legal defense to the poor and the vulnerable. To this end, 25 public defender trainees were recruited for intensive training in both legal theory and courtroom practice. In their first year in practice, the newly trained public defenders represented clients in over 300 cases in Cambodian criminal courts, achieving several major victories. In
December 1995, the Bar Statute was passed and a Cambodian Bar was formed.
By the end of 1997, non-lawyer "defenders" were no longer
permitted to represent clients in court. In preparation for this, CDP
defenders trained for two years to become members of the Bar. As of
March 2001, CDP has 31lawyers recognized by
the Bar Association of the Kingdom of Cambodia. During the seven years since the first successes of its public defenders, CDP has expanded its legal and human rights activities. Besides representing the poor and vulnerable in both civil and criminal proceedings, CDP has established several projects to raise legal awareness of the people and government officials, advocate for sound legislation and provide protection for particularly disadvantaged groups. The ultimate goal of the
International Human Rights Law Group – to foster the evolution of CDP
into an independent Cambodian-managed NGO – was realized in February of
this year when CDP became fully localized. |
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Copyright (CDP) All rights
reserved |