AUGUST 2005

 

 

 

The 2005 Legal Training Project on

Criminal Defense before the Upcoming Khmer Rouge Tribunal

 

Report on the Legal Training of August 2005

 

 

This report describes the Legal Training, which took place at the DC-cam’s office from 15 to 26 August 2005.

 

 

I. The legal training’s sessions

 

1. Overview

 

The legal training’s sessions focused on “Criminal defense before the upcoming Khmer Rouge tribunal (KRT)”.

 

The topics presented were the same than during the July legal training. They are the following ones:

  • An introduction to the upcoming KRT.

  • The rights of the defendant.

  • The role of the defense counsel before the KRT.

  • Potential challenges for defense counsel before the KRT.

  • Rights and duties of defense counsel before the KRT.

  • Types of defenses.

  • Defense’s motion and closing arguments.

 

Those topics were presented in different fashions: lectures; workshops; wrap up exercises (including questions and answers sessions and drafting of essays); presentation and screening of a video on a hearing before the ICTY; visit to a courtroom and to the potential KRT premises; and screening of the documentary “ S 21 : the Khmer Rouge Killing machine” by Rithy Panh (see the August legal training’s agenda).

 

2. Achievements

 

All the presentations made by the legal training team and the foreign guest lecturers were translated into Khmer.

 

Most of the trainees confirmed to the legal training team that they understood and were extremely interested in the topics presented. The participation of the trainees during the lectures was however less active than in the July training session. Nevertheless, during each training session, very pertinent and/or complex legal questions were asked by the trainees to the guest lecturers or legal training team.

 

In addition, during the workshops, all the trainees present performed the assigned exercises in a committed manner. They were split into different groups and were asked to prepare answers, which were later presented orally by one or two representative persons of the group. Finally, the wrap up exercises gave an additional chance to the trainees to raise questions and to make comments on relevant issues, while also allowing less confident trainees to take the floor.

 

3. Comments made by some of the trainees on the topics and forms of the legal training’s sessions

 

On the legal training’s topics:

 

  • positive comments:

 

“I liked all topics presented during the legal training. All topics are very important and interesting for me to know about the upcoming KRT in Cambodia.”

 

“It is useful for me as national lawyer to understand about the KRT in general and about the procedures used before the KRT, and the idea to have a court in particular.”

 

“ I like it because the topics in the training provides new knowledge.”

 

“I like the lectures relating to the KRT and international criminal tribunals.”

 

“It is so important for me because it makes me understand about legal issues (KRT).”

 

  • negative comments: none

 

On the way the training was proceeding (lectures, workshops, etc…):

 

  • positive comments:

 

“The training session organised by the legal training DC-cam staff are good. I like it very much. It’s easy to understand about the training course. The guest lecturers’ lectures were also very good and interesting.”

 

“We have basic idea by having theory and practice together in class.”

 

“I like this training because there is a mix of guest lecturers and exercises.”

 

  • negative comments: none

 

 

II. Involvement of the foreign and Cambodian guest lecturers

 

1. Overview/achievements

 

Foreign guest lecturer I: Geert-Jan Alexander Knoops, professor of international law at Utrecht University and defense counsel before the ICTR, ICTY and Sierra Leone Special Court, dealt with “the rights of the defendants” and took part to four days of the legal training (days 2 to 5). Pr. Knoops also facilitated the workshop on day 2 of the training and took part in the wrap up exercise on day 5 of the training.

 

The workshop exercise involved splitting the classroom into three groups and giving to each group for review an edited (and simplified) version of Human Rights Committee’s views delivered in one specific case.  Each group was requested to present to the other groups:

  • What were the violations of Article 14 of the ICCPR alleged by the author of the HRC’s communication, and

  • What were the views of the HRC in the case they had examined.

All groups succeeded in identifying both the issues raised in the HRC’s views and the conclusions adopted by the HRC.

 

The wrap up exercise consisted of answering to questions raised by the trainees on various topics, which had been dealt during the week, such as for instance the jurisdiction of the KRT, the rights of the defendants, or the aim of the KRT.

 

Hereafter are some of the questions raised by the trainees:

 

“Could the KRT try foreign politicians related to the Khmer Rouge leaders or try current leaders of Cambodia if there was evidence found against those persons by the KRT Prosecutors?”

 

“How can Khmer Rouge persons be presumed innocent, although the crimes committed by the Khmer Rouge are widely known?”

 

“Would KRT judges and prosecutors, who are victims of the Khmer Rouge, be able to adjudicate cases in an independent and impartial way?”

 

Foreign Guest lecturer II: Wayne Jordash, UK Barrister and defense counsel before the ICTY and the Sierra Leone Special Court, dealt with “the role of the defense counsel before the KRT” and “rights and duties of defense counsel before the KRT” over two days (on days 6 and 7 of the training).

 

Wayne Jordash also designed and facilitated a workshop, which was held on day 7 of the training. The workshop consisted of providing the trainees with a case study, which recounted the story of a person who had been arrested and then tried before the KRT. Factual and legal information were given for each stage of the criminal proceedings. The trainees were requested to present what actions they would take, if they were defense counsel, to defend their client throughout the criminal proceedings. The trainees managed to find many of the motions and actions defense counsel should have done in the instant case and also referred to the appropriate law provisions to support their actions/motions.

 

Foreign Guest lecturer III: Professor Linda Carter, University of the Pacific, McGeorge law school, Sacramento, California, USA, dealt with “types of defenses” and “defense’s motion and closing arguments” and took part in the last three days of the training (days 8 to 10).

 

Pr. Carter’s lectures on “types of defenses” focused on three main issues:

  • the failure by the prosecutor to prove elements of both the crime of genocide and crimes against humanity,

  • the failure to prove the theory of command responsibility,

  • affirmative defenses, such as superior orders and duress defenses.

She also gave information on motions and closing arguments.

 

Pr. Carter’s theoretical presentations were afterwards put into practice during a workshop dealing with the same issues on day 9 of the training. Pr. Carter also facilitated the wrap up exercise of day 10 of the training

 

Cambodian guest lecturer: Mr. Huot Vuthy, deputy prosecutor of Kandal provincial court, dealt with “the rights of the defendants in practice in Cambodia”. He took part in the afternoon session on day 4 of the training. During this session, Mr. Huot Vuthy provided the trainees with a criminal case that he had dealt with at Kandal provincial court. Subsequently, he reviewed with the trainees the violations of the rights of the defendants in the said case.

 

2. Comments made by some of the trainees on the lectures

 

  • positive comments:

 

“All courses, explanations of lecturers and examples, are interesting. I like it so much.”

 

  • negative comments:

 

“The course is a little bit short”.

 

3. Comments made by some of the trainees on the workshops and warp up exercises

 

  • positive comments:

 

“I learned a lot from the workshops.”

 

“ It is very good instructive lecturing.”

 

  • negative comments: none

 

 

III. Legal training’s materials

 

1. Overview

 

The legal training team prepared two volumes of course materials on “criminal defense before the upcoming KRT” (see report on LTP – July 2005).

 

Both documents were distributed and presented to the trainees on 12 August 2005 and on the subsequent days. During the training, the legal training team and guest lecturers regularly informed the trainees about where in the course materials they could find:

  • some specific information (such as: information on the interpretation of the defense of duress by the ICTY in Volume I or provisions of the Laws included in volume II, etc…),  or

  • the answers to some of the issues discussed during the presentations (example of question: Could the jurisprudence of other international tribunals be used before the KRT? – when answering this question: reference was made to pages 7 and 8 of the course material, which deal with this issue).

 

During the training, the legal training team also distributed to the trainees a “Searching for the truth magazine”, which contains a translation in Khmer of Chapter two of the training material Volume I on the “rights of the defendants”.

 

Throughout the training, the trainees noticeably were using the training materials Volume I and II: by highlighting parts of it or reading aloud some of the laws provisions, etc…, which were mentioned during the guest lecturers’ presentations.

 

2. The trainees’ attendance

 

During the legal training, the participants were as follows:

  • 6 villagers coming from 5 different provinces, including Kampong Cham, Kandal, Pursat, Prey Veng, and Kampot.

  • 4 journalists, including two from Cambodge Soir, one from Women Media Center of Cambodia and a freelance journalist,

  • 10 lawyers from various law firms and organisations,

  • 5 legal assistants and intern lawyers,

  • 1 member of a political party, i.e. the interim President of Sangkum Thmei party.

 

The training session had a total of 18 morning and afternoon sessions. 5 participants attended all the training sessions and 3 of them missed only one day of the legal training. Those 8 participants were 6 villagers, the interim president of Sangkum Thmei Party and a lawyer working for the organisation RULE. In addition, half of the participants attended at least 8 of those sessions.

 

3. Unexpected Outcome

 

During the training, we were given information by one of the trainees on documents of the Khmer Rouge regime. Mr. Thong Sambath, a lawyer at the Asian International Law Firm, met with the Director of the Documentation Center of Cambodia a few days after the completion of the training and promised to handover some pictures of the Khmer Rouge regime to DC-Cam for public use.

 

Surprisingly, another trainee, Mr. Ros Suy, 51, from Kandal province, found information on his dead sister in Searching for the Truth magazine. While he was waiting in the Public Information Room ("PIR") before the beginning of an afternoon training session, he read the magazine Searching for the Truth, no. 31 of July 2002. He then recognized clearly a picture of his sister in the magazine. Mr. Suy said that since his sister disappeared in 1977 he had tried by all means to seek information about her, but unfortunately his effort has not succeeded.

 

Last but not least, Prof. Knoops contributed to us a book entitled An Introduction to the Law of International Criminal Tribunals: A Comparative Study and an article: International and Internationalized Criminal courts: the new face of international peace and security for the use of DC-Cam. He is the author of the book and article.

 

Prepared by Héleyn Uñac

heleynunac@hotmail.com

and Dara P. Vanthan

truthpdara@dccam.org

 

         

 


Documentation Center of Cambodia

Ten Years of Independently Searching for the Truth: 1997-2007

 

DC-Cam ® 66 Preah Sihanouk Blvd. ® P.O. Box 1110 ® Phnom Penh ® Cambodia

Tel: (855-23) 211-875 ® Fax: (855-23) 210-358 ® Email: dccam@online.com.kh ® www.dccam.org