A/HRC/30/30
submissions. The programme involved 27 judges and prosecutors from 12 provinces, the
Court of Appeal and the Supreme Court. It included a study tour of the Extraordinary
Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia and many practical discussions and exercises,
covering, inter alia, fair trial rights, and the application of international human rights law in
general and in respect of the Criminal Procedure Code. OHCHR developed comprehensive
course materials for further use by the Ministry of Justice and its training institutions.
According to their evaluation of the workshop, the participants found the training to be
relevant and useful. The Ministry expressed interest in having the programme become an
integral part of judicial education in Cambodia. Discussions are ongoing between the
Ministry and the Royal Academy of Judicial Professions on the modalities and
responsibilities.
26.
OHCHR has continued to strengthen the tools for legal professionals to better ensure
the delivery of justice. One tool that has proven to be useful for the improved application of
criminal law has been the Annotated Code of Criminal Procedure, which was published by
OHCHR in March 2014. The need to revise the publication was reinforced at a meeting
held in October 2014 among national and international actors in Cambodia active or
interested in promoting the legacy of the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of
Cambodia – a meeting organized regularly by OHCHR to update each other on the
activities of each participating organization – where a number of participants considered
that it should be updated in view of relevant new jurisprudence. OHCHR thus began to
update the draft, based on 319 decisions, interlocutory memoranda and orders issued by the
Extraordinary Chambers. In May 2015, it held an expert workshop to review the updated
draft. The experts validated the annotations; the revised annotated code was to be finalized
in Khmer and English in July 2015.
27. Another important tool is a case management database for the courts of first instance.
The Ministry of Justice is proceeding in the implementation of the Law on the Organization
of the Court Organs and Law on the Role of Judges and Prosecutors of 2014. In 2015, the
Ministry began to develop detailed work plans to establish new administrative units within
each court, which would allow court presidents to concentrate on their adjudication
functions. The staffing levels in the courts were being reinforced to that end. Once they are
fully functional, the restructuring is expected to improve the efficiency of the justice system,
particularly given that the new units in the largest courts will be equipped with a case
management database.
28.
The database was developed by the Program on Rights and Justice of the East-West
Management Institute, which worked to improve court administration and case
management in selected courts. Following the closure of the Program at the end of 2014,
OHCHR assumed the task of expanding the database, which had been installed in the
Phnom Penh Municipal Court. The database facilitates the retrieval of information on
individual cases and of aggregated data used to analyse the general functioning of each
court. From March 2015, OHCHR conducted assessment missions, in partnership with the
Ministry of Justice, in five courts of first instance selected for their relatively large caseload.
At each court, OHCHR installed the database and trained court officials on its use.
Following consultations with the Ministry of Justice and UNICEF, OHCHR supported the
development of a new component to track child justice data. In 2015, the Ministry of
Justice provided a computer and server in the five courts, while UNICEF also contributed
an additional computer and scanner for each of the courts to encourage the use of the
database. To ensure proper maintenance of the database, a Ministry official is being
coached by an information-technology specialist contracted by OHCHR.
29.
OHCHR aims at extending the installation of the database to all provincial courts
and ultimately to link them nationally, thereby allowing for reliable case management
nationwide. It is hoped that lesser reliance on the transfer of paper files and more effective
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