A/HRC/27/43 26. OHCHR continued to support regular meetings between the police, members of the judiciary and prison officials in the provinces, especially in the north-west of the country through its Battambang regional office, to improve cooperation within the criminal justice system and discuss issues related to the implementation of the Code of Criminal Procedure. During the reporting period, OHCHR supported six such provincial meetings. OHCHR conducted training in the provinces, in cooperation with chief prosecutors, for police and gendarmerie officers on the prevention, investigation and prosecution of acts of torture and ill-treatment. OHCHR followed up on the training sessions conducted during previous reporting periods through visits to police stations at the district level to further disseminate the relevant international human rights standards. In addition, OHCHR organized joint visits with prosecutors to police stations, allowing prosecutors to interact with local police officers, check police registry books and inspect police cells. Most local prosecutors had never previously visited those police stations. Finally, OHCHR translated into Khmer and published the Code of Conduct for Law Enforcement Officials and the Basic Principles on the Use of Force and Firearms by Law Enforcement Officials. 27. Cooperation between OHCHR and the Bar Association remained excellent. Both jointly advocated for improved access to justice through the establishment of a legal aid system. Currently, legal aid is mainly funded by donors through grants to legal aid NGOs. The Legal Aid Department of the Bar Association receives very little government funding. The Bar Association and the Ministry of Justice, with support from OHCHR and the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), organized a national legal aid conference in November 2013. The conference was attended by judges, prosecutors and legal aid lawyers from across the country. At the conference, the Government announced that the national legal aid budget would be increased in 2014 and pledged further increases in future years. However, the transfer of the management of the legal aid budget from the Bar Association to the Ministry of Justice, also announced at the conference, has led to a decrease in the number of persons benefiting from legal aid. OHCHR translated into Khmer and published the recently adopted United Nations Principles and Guidelines on Access to Legal Aid in Criminal Justice Systems (General Assembly resolution 67/187). 28. OHCHR and the Bar Association began working on a new law on the bar. The current Law on the Bar dates back to 1995 and the Bar Association has expressed strong interest in it being updated. A working group was formed in July 2013 and met on several occasions to discuss possible amendments. OHCHR provided support for the meetings and technical assistance during the discussions. 29. OHCHR organized a third, expanded edition of the Fair Trial Rights Academy. This time, the eight-week course was delivered to a group of 59 trainee lawyers at the Lawyer Training Center. During the course, the trainee lawyers learned about fair trial rights and how they are applied at the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia, and toured the Chambers. Following positive feedback from the participants, the Bar Association asked OHCHR and the Swedish Raoul Wallenberg Institute to develop a 30-hour human rights module which will henceforth form a standard part of the curriculum for all trainee lawyers in Cambodia. 30. During the reporting period, OHCHR followed up cases involving human rights violations, 14 of which were followed particularly closely. In all cases, OHCHR liaised with judges, prosecutors and lawyers on the progress. In some cases, OHCHR assisted victims in finding a lawyer to defend them. In seven cases, OHCHR worked directly with lawyers to assist them in defending cases through improved use of human rights-based arguments before the courts. Through this work, several human rights issues have been brought to the attention of judges with some degree of success. In one case, the Supreme Court made several references to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights in 8