The Phnom Penh Post, a local English-language newspaper, has recently published the letter from a human rights advocate commenting on the legal action that Mu Sochua, a female Member of Parliament (MP) from the opposition party, and Prime Minister Hun Sen had taken against each other for defamation. On 23 April, in a news conference, Mu announced her lawsuit against Hun for his derogatory remarks made early in the month. This announcement prompted Hun to file a counter-lawsuit against both Mu and her lawyer for what they had said about him in that news conference. Both sides filed their lawsuits on the same day, 27 April.The author of the letter repeatedly expressed his concern that the case of Mu versus Hun “is very deleterious to the current situation of freedom of expression in Cambodia.” Prejudging the outcome of this case, he asserted that “Mr Hun Sen does not bow down to anyone; nor does he bow to Mu Sochua’s legal threat.” This concern and assertion appear to reflect the view of many of the author’s fellow human rights advocates, many of his fellow countrymen, and also the experience with Hun’s lawsuits against his critics in the past. When the press asked Cambodians for their reaction to the case, some expressed regret over it, suggesting the two politicians should not sue each other. Others, apparently out of fear, expressed no opinion. Very few dared take Mu’s side. Freedom of expression has already been curtailed, and it is therefore not well founded to hold Mu’s legal action as prompting Hun’s counter-lawsuit and then attribute any threat on this freedom to the Mu versus Hun case that ensued. Hun had successively, taken unopposed action, including lawsuits, against his critics. Journalists whose writings were critical of his government have received threats and intimidation or faced defamation lawsuits, some have been killed. They have continued to face such danger until now. In July 2008, a journalist for a pro-opposition newspaper was shot dead in the street for his continued criticism of the government. Towards the end of 2005 some human rights activists were jailed for their criticism of the government’s accommodation of Vietnam’s interests over the demarcation of the border between Vietnam and Cambodia. When a custodial sentence was removed from defamation, disinformation with a custodial sentence was added to defamation lawsuits so that critics can be jailed. This enabled the jailing of a university teacher in 2006 for both alleged defamation and disinformation for publishing a book critical of Hun. It is not proper either to urge, as some have done, Mu and Hun, and for that matter anybody else, to desist from taking legal action to protect their honour and reputation. This protection is a human right. Article 12 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and Article 17 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) guarantee this protection, saying that “no one shall be subjected to arbitrary interference with his privacy
.nor to unlawful attacks on his honour and reputation” and “everyone has the right to the protection of the law against such interference or attacks.” General Comment No.16 on this protection urges State parties to the ICCPR to “indicate in their reports to what extent the honour or reputation of individuals is protected by law and how this protection is achieved according to their legal system.” Cambodia has met its obligation in this regard. Its Constitution provides for the protection of people’s honour and reputation when it says under Article 38 that “the law shall protect life, honor, and dignity of the citizens.” Its criminal law as amended, known as the UNTAC Law, makes defamation a non-custodial criminal offence punishable by a fine of US$250 to 2,500: “Any bad faith allegation or imputation of a given fact which harms the honor or reputation of an individual is defamation
. Any insult, contemptuous remark or abusive language which does not claim to impute fact constitutes libel. Defamation or libel
shall be punished by a fine of one million to ten million Riels”, (says Article 63). Freedom of expression is a fundamental right and is important in a democratic society. But the task of upholding it should not be to do away with lawsuits altogether. It should instead be to widen the limits of acceptable criticism and demand that politicians display a high degree of tolerance as the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) set as a standard in a democratic society in its judgment dated 22 October 2007 of the Case of Lindon, Otchakovsky-Laurens and July v. France. The ECHR said “the limits of acceptable criticism are wider as regards a politician as such than as regards a private individual. Unlike the latter, the former inevitably and knowingly lays himself open to close scrutiny of his every word and
Source: CAMBODIA: If Prime Minister Hun Sen”does not bow down to anyone”, will he do so before the law? — Asian Human Rights Commission
