Tribunal defense head resigns

Aug 04, 2008
Elena in ECCC
The Phnom Penh Post blogs

Rupert Skilbeck, Officer-in-Charge of the ECCC's Defense Support Section, stepped down last week after two years on the job. Deputy Principal Defender Richard Rogers will fill in for him while the court searches for a replacement, according to court spokesman Peter Foster.

In an interview published in today's Cambodia Daily, Skilbeck said he will be assuming a new position with the Open Society Justice Initiative in New York.

He lamented that more details hadn't been addressed before the clock started ticking on the tribunal: "We had to learn and do that process through the first six-to-nine-month's set up of the court, which wasted quite a long time."

Yet even though he is leaving just before the first trials are expected to start, Skilbeck told the Daily he is pleased with the court's progress.

"Last month we had four-day legal arguments on the definition of amnesty and double jeopardy and pardons," he said, referring to Ieng Sary's pre-trial hearing. "That is no mean feat and that is the first time that's happened in Cambodia, and to be honest in many developing countries you would never see anything like that."

Chief defense lawyer vows to prevent collapse of Khmer Rouge tribunal

2007/3/17
PHNOM PENH, Cambodia (AP)

The chief defense lawyer for the long-delayed Khmer Rouge genocide tribunal in Cambodia said Saturday he will try to resolve a key sticking point over fees for foreign lawyers that threatens to derail the trials.

Rupert Skilbeck, the head of the defense support section for the U.N.-backed tribunal, said he wants to meet with the Cambodian Bar Association in the coming days to "see if we can find the way to resolve the problem." He said he was confident an agreement could be reached.

The impasse involves the Cambodian Bar Association's recent decision to charge foreign lawyers hundreds of dollars (euros) to represent defendants or victims in the long-awaited tribunal, which was scheduled to begin later this year.

The issue became public Friday after Cambodian and international judges finished a 10-day meeting to thrash out differences over draft internal rules for the genocide trials, but said the legal fee dispute had prevented their adoption.

Ky Tech, president of the Cambodian Bar Association, declined to comment or discuss details of the legal fees.

The Cambodia Daily newspaper reported Saturday that the bar has decided that foreign lawyers wishing to participate in the tribunal must pay the bar a US$500 (€375) membership application fee.

If chosen to work with a client, they must pay an additional US$2,000 (€1,500) and a US$200 (€150) monthly fee, the newspaper said.

Skilbeck indicated that foreign lawyers were willing to compromise, saying that "a reasonable administrative fee might be possible."

The international judges may boycott a plenary meeting next month if the fee issue is not resolved, the tribunal office said in a statement Friday.

It said the judges discussed, during their meetings, "in exhaustive detail many points and resolved all remaining disagreements, although some fine tuning remains to be done."

But it indicated that the international judges believed that the proposed fee was an obstacle to adopting the agreed rules, while the Cambodia judges believed the fee was irrelevant to the package of rules.

The fee "is unacceptable to the international judges, who consider that it severely limits the rights of accused and victims to select counsel of their choice," the statement said.

The radical policies of the now-defunct Khmer Rouge, who held power in 1975-79, led to the deaths of about 1.7 million people from execution, overwork, disease and malnutrition. But none of the communist group's leaders has been brought to trial.

Squabbling over details about the rules to govern the trials has eaten up nearly a third of the tribunal's three-year planned life span. Further delay could mean that former Khmer Rouge leaders _ now elderly and ailing _ will never be brought to trial.

Prosecutors are expected to indict about 10 defendants, including the few surviving top Khmer Rouge leaders.

The tribunal was created by a 2003 agreement between Cambodia and the United Nations after years of difficult negotiations.

Cambodian Lawyers Trained for Tribunal

Veasna Mean and Khemara Sok
VOA Khmer
Phnom Penh
14/03/2007

Negotiating jurists conceded on snags over foreign-lawyer participation but ignored many requirements put forward by the Cambodian Bar Association, observers said Wednesday, as Khmer Rouge tribunal meetings inched closer to a Friday deadline.

Meanwhile, training of Cambodian lawyers proceeded, in a sign the bar association was capitulating on other fronts.

The last three days of meetings had brought progress, close observers told VOA, but suggestions from the bar association—that foreign lawyers pay high registration and membership fees and would be under the direct control of the bar—were passed over in favor of other resolutions, which were not elaborated on.

Cambodian and international judges and prosecutors have been meeting for more than a week to find common ground over internal rules that would govern a tribunal of Khmer Rouge leaders. Sticking points between local and UN-appointed jurists include the rights of the accused, protection of witnesses and the role of foreign lawyers, among others.

But turning over control of foreign lawyers to the Cambodian Bar Association could mean a water-down trial not up to international standards, rights workers have said.

As negotiations continued, the first 60 Cambodian lawyers attended a training course on international law and genocide from the International Bar Association.

In the past, the Cambodian Bar Association prohibited such training.

"This workshop is important because it links the court with international standards and fills the gap that Cambodian lawyers lack," said Reach Sambath, a spokesman for the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia, the official name of the tribunal.

Rupert Skilbeck, principal defender for the tribunal, welcomed the training.