“A report commissioned by the
British Embassy records how a Briton convicted and sentenced to seven years
jail in Cambodia for child sexual abuse was given absolutely no justice in a
Cambodian court – in a case funded by the British Embassy.
Since the report was made, the
British Embassy which helps funds prosecutions of foreign padeophiles has
discontinued monitoring of the court in Phnom Penh - notably in the above
case.”
The
‘above case’ is that of Matt Harland, who has conducted a survey – the first
lot of results of which are published here:
c/o British Embassy
27 - 29 Street 75
Phnom Penh
8th January 2015
Open letter, HE Ang Vong Vathana
Your Exelency,
I am writing on behalf of prisoners detained at Prey Sar prison, in order to raise the enclosed issues of concern, highlighted by the survey attached.
The survey shows that the foreign prisoners, interviewed at Prey Sar, have not received their minimum rights, associated with a fair trial.
In the absence of a fair hearing, many of these prisoners are now illegally detained, without the resources, funds or freedom to challenge their unsafe convictions.
The survey also shows a concerning pattern of police theft, extortion and poor compliance with procedure. Currently, prisoners are unable to raise official complaints against authorities, as we do not have access to a complaints procedure.
With respect, I ask Your Exelency and the Royal Government of Cambodia, to support our constitutional right to raise a complaint and to initiate and support an investigation into the issues raised by this survey.
I look forward to receiving your reply. I'm
Sincerely
Matt Harland
This document details the aims, process followed, issues, analysis and known errors associated with the project.
The aim is full disclosure of the findings and transparency of the process, without putting individuals at risk of punishment.
Background
This survey was launched by a small group of prisoners, who realised that their fundamental rights have been abused to such an extent, that their court hearings were manifestly unfair and unlawful.
Prisoners from many countries have noted that authorities in Cambodia and their home countries pay only lip service to the notion of a fair trial.
The fundamental rights to "a lawyer of your choice", "to question your accusers" and to "speak in your defence" - appear to mean nothing to authorities in Cambodia, our home governments and our embassies, who often state, incorrectly, that they cannot get involved.
Prisoners wish to be treated with an appropriate level of respect, consistent with the right to presumed innocence and the process laid down by law - not just as a source of income.
Aim
The aims of the project are;
- to measure the scale of injustice in Cambodia
- to measure law and process compliance
- to report the findings to authorities in Cambodia
- to report the findings to our own governments
- to bring a group action against authorities
In short, to highlight the shortcomings and seek justice through a fair process.
Known issues
This survey is being conducted by "convicts" of a corrupted system. Some are guilty of a crime, some are innocent. These facts are not relevant to the aim or the results, the important factors are accurate data collection and analysis.
Written documents (copies) had to be passed from prisoners to members of the public as prisoners do not have access to email or computer resources.
The returned data was checked and verified before publication via members of the public.
This survey has been conducted by prisoners, because no other authority or organisation has attempted to measure, the data, behind what is known to be a real problem.
This failure to protect our individual rights to a fair trial, leaves prisoners no choice but to take action, present our findings and request our constitutional right to raise a complaint.
A lack of access to funds, resources and systems, means that this survey is limited to only 50 questions, which we consider most relevant and understood by prisoners, authorities and the general public.
It is desirable to survey both foreign and Khmer prisoners, however, language and cultural differences show this is not fully achievable within our limited resources.
We hope another organisation will extend this survey, to offer a similar project for Khmer prisoners.
Method
The following methods were conducted inside Prey Sar, additional IT support was conducted by members of the public, outside of Prey Sar.
1 - Fifty questions were selected for their relevance to basic rights, a fair trial and alignment to local criminal procedure
2 - These questions cover police, lawyers, courts, our home government and NGO's where appropriate
3 - Questions were phrased for a yes or no answer, without being leading
4 - Questionnaires were printed and distributed among selected prisoners according to location within the prison
5 - The selected prisoners received guidance on conducting interviews, without influencing the answers
6 - The servey was conducted between 25th December 2014 and 4th January 2015, to avoid the possibility of collusion
7 - The data was analysed by Matt Harland and verified by Cookie Ekelund
8 - The raw data is published (excluding names) for authorities and the public
9 - The data was used together with the Criminal Code and International law, to reach published conclusions
10 - Headlines were drawn from the conclusions / facts.
The process above is available for independent inspection and will be presented in future proceedings.
Issues during survey
The following were unexpected issues during the survey;
1. A number of prisoners appeared frightened to complete the survey, these were predominantly from a particular ethnic group
Unfortunately, we were unable to adapt the survey to capture the experience of all these prisoners, however, a small sample was recorded and has been included in the results.
2. Some prisoners expressed fear of reprisals when asked about a class action.
3. The majority wanted to provide examples, many were emotional, exceptional examples of mistreatment were noted and examples will be published with final results.
This unexpected response caused the survey to exceed the planned timescale, but empathy, accuracy and diligence had to take priority over speed.
4. Two prisoners needed additional help from other prisoners who are aware of their case, due to ill health - the potential error is negligible.
5. Two released prisoners asked to be included in the survey, the inclusion has no effect on the accuracy results.
6. Some prisoners believe that corruption is the only solution in the Cambodian justice system and did not take part.
7. The local criminal process (law books) is not fully available at Prey Sar.
8. Prisoners are not legally trained, and as the results show, have limited access to trained legal professionals. Further legal analysis will be required.
Where the local process is unavailable, compliance has been measured against the International Convention on Civil and Political Rights, which has been ratified by Cambodia.
Further analysis will be required.
Publication of evidence
The following documents provide additional evidence and analysis;
1 - "project overview"; this document.
2 - "raw data"; a spreadsheet which was used to capture the raw data from the completed surveys.
3 - "headlines"; some of the most concerning findings, which were drawn from analysis of the raw data.
4 - "detailed"; a full breakdown of answers and few examples of injustice or corruption provided during data collection.
The published information also includes letters to authorities in Cambodia.
Results
We started with the following objectives;
1 - To measure the scale of injustice in Cambodia
The measures for each question has been published with the collected data.
The results have been analysed and consolidated to produce a measure of injustice.
As not a single person received a fair trial, as defined by the individual rights in questions 3, 23, 24, 25, 26 and 27, the measure of injustice is 100%.
Result - 100% injustice
2 - To measure law and process compliance;
This has been reported against Internationally accepted standards, primarily in regards to the minimum rights which define a fair trial;
- the right to a lawyer of your choice, 39% compliance
- the right to question your accuser, 7% compliance
- the right to prepare your defence, (subjective) not measured
- the right to free use of an interpreter, 33% - 35% compliance
- the right to defend yourself at a public hearing, 4% compliance
When consolidated, compliance with law is zero percent. Meaning that no single person was permitted every one of these minimum rights.
3 - To report the findings to authorities in Cambodia;
The results have been published and sent via email, to Cambodian authorities, which include; the Ministry of Justice, the Ministry of Interior, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Council of Ministers.
4 - To report the findings to our own governments;
The results have been published and sent to the embassies of those surveyed and government offices where the addresses can be found.
5 - To bring a group action against authorities;
A request has been made to present a group action, starting at the government level.
If this is not successful, we intend to seek representation for a class action.
The full results, data and analysis are published in the related documents, it is our intention to make these documents public.
Known statistical errors
Where statistical errors have been identified, corrections have been made to compensate - only by lowering the number of acceptable answers in the "ANS" column to give an accurate percentage, and not by changing data.
Example 1 :
Question 14 - "did you replace your first lawyer? "
An answer of "na" indicates that the person did not have a lawyer to replace.
This would cause an error in questions 15, 17 and 18
The data in these cases has not been changed. However, the total number of true answers (in the ANS column) has been lowered, to give a true percentage of yes / no answers.
Example 2 :
Questions 23a, 45a and 45b were added by one member of the survey team, but not by the others.
The total number of true answers has been lowered to give an accurate percentage - albeit from a smaller sample (11).
Example 3 :
Question 30 - "did your verdict reflect what was said in court?"
An answer of "na" indicates that the individual is still "pre-trial".
The number of true answers has been lowered to the total of "y" or "n" answers.
Other statistical errors have been corrected in the same way, where necessary.
January 8th 2015
I have sent a copy of Matt Harland's letter to the Minister for Justice and the survey results to British Foreign Secretary, Mr Phillip Hammond, to the British embassies in Thailand and Cambodia, to the Cambodia Daily and the Phnom Penh Post, to LICADHO and ADHOC and others. The note I write, accompanying Mr Harland's survey reads:
ReplyDelete"Dear email recipients
I trust that those of you who work in the media, who work for embassies of one kind or another, who work for NGOs (particularly in the area of human rights) will read these documents (prepared by Matt Harland) and ask the right questions of those to whom such questions should be directed.
The burying of heads in the sand is a tactic that will only work for a period of time. I hope that time has passed. If not, it should have!
There is a scandal of major proportions here waiting to be exposed. And it will be, in time. All of those who turn a blind eye, who hope that if they pretend it is not happening, that it will go away, will, in the fullness of time, be seen as complicit in the perpetuation of a scenario that sees the human and legal rights of men accused of sex crimes abrogated.
The problem is, if my experience counts for anything, there are few recipients of this email with the moral courage to either ask the right questions or to act on the answers, or lack thereof.
best wishes
James Ricketson"
It will be interesting (and instructive) to see if this survey is ignored or leads to questions being asked by all those who should, in the interests of the legal and human rights of prisoners, be asking them.