Legal Aid in Cambodia: Practices, Perceptions and Needs - PRAJ

Legal Aid in Cambodia: Practices, Perceptions and Needs 9A Study based on a National SurveyThe second stakeholders’ workshop was a meeting of Government, donor and NGOstakeholders in Phnom Penh on June 2, 2006. The aim of this meeting was to get commentson the preliminary findings of the survey.The third stakeholders’ workshop was a larger meeting held on August 9, 2006 in PhnomPenh to consider the findings of the survey. Some 150 participants from Government, donorand NGO stakeholders considered the findings and gave their reactions to them. Thoseattending included officials from the Ministry of Justice, CLJR, RAJP (Royal Academy ofJudicial Professions), Ministry of Women’s Affairs, provincial and municipal courts, andcommune councils. A number of legal aid lawyers and members of national and internationalNGOs and donor agencies were also in attendance.The workshop included four key presentations: an introduction to the legal aid survey by Mr.Pen Bunchhea, Deputy Director of the CLJR PMU, a review of existing legal aid laws andprovisions by Mr. Kong Phallack, Deputy Head of the CLJR PMU legal reform project team,a presentation on the survey findings by Mr. Tim Smyth, Managing Director of IRL, and asummary of survey recommendations, presented by the PRAJ Access to Justice Advisor, Mr.Rajan Shah. An afternoon session allowed for participant feedback, and involved groupdiscussions on outreach to communities; linkages with institutions that provide legal aidservices; and legal aid services to under-covered areas. Suggestions from this session wereincorporated into the final study recommendations (see chapter 5, below).2.7. SURVEY LIMITATIONSLike all surveys, the survey had its limitations. The participants in the semi-structuredinterviews with legal aid providers included not just legal aid lawyers but also Governmentofficials and others routinely called on to give legal advise as part of their duties or becausethey regularly deal with potential legal aid clients. This being the case the findings of theinterviews tended to be somewhat general in nature. Focus group discussions and the August9, 2006, stakeholders’ workshop provided more specificity in this field, but perhaps notenough.Another limitation was that the survey was not tasked to measure the quality of existing legalaid service delivery, though it did address perceptions of this service delivery. Even if it hadbeen tasked to do so, it would have had difficulty in doing so, since existing legal aidproviders lack common standards with respect to client care quality, reporting practices andaccountability. Given the lack of such standards and of benchmark data, assessments ofquality would have been hard to make.