A/HRC/7/42 page 22 97. There is no mandatory reporting on campaign financing; no explicit limitations on non-monetary and in-kind assistance to electoral candidates; no ceiling on total expenditures; no limitation on individual or total contributions; and no obligations on party officials to certify accounts or sanctions for false accounting. 98. A number of recommendations on reforms to the electoral system prepared by the European Union and other groups of observers at previous elections and UNDP experts should be considered, and implemented for the 2008 elections. VI. CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS 99. Year after year, the Special Representative’s predecessors and others have addressed the problems of the legal and judicial system in Cambodia and made numerous recommendations, to no avail. The Government has no incentives for reform, as the international community continues to make large financial contributions regardless of widespread violations of human rights. 100. A distinguished Cambodian legal scholar recently commented that “the Government is the least serious about the legal and judicial programme”.22 The World Bank shelved a project because of “a lack of senior-level commitment to the implementation of a concerted legal and judicial reform agenda within the Executive and Judicial branches of the Government”.23 Another donor has said that numerous plans and councils on good governance are “little more than a studied attempt to tell donors what they want to hear”.24 Recommendations to the Government 101. The Government has primary responsibility for the rule of law. The Special Representative would stress the following recommendations, many of which were made previously: • The Government must respect the independence of all prosecutors and judges, including those (and defenders and administrative staff) within ECCC. • The Government must devote more resources to the justice sector. Efforts to train lawyers and to recruit prosecutors and judges should continue and the aim should be for everyone to be within easy reach of a court and for delays in proceedings to be minimized. 22 LICADHO report, The charade of justice, 2007, p. 27. 23 Kingdom of Cambodia, 2005 CAS Completion Report, World Bank, 30 March 2005. 24 Cambodian Corruption Assessment, USAID, August 2004.