Legal Aid in Cambodia: Practices, Perceptions and Needs - PRAJ
Legal Aid in Cambodia: Practices, Perceptions and Needs - PRAJ
Legal Aid in Cambodia: Practices, Perceptions and Needs - PRAJ
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18<strong>Legal</strong> <strong>Aid</strong> <strong>in</strong> <strong>Cambodia</strong>: <strong>Practices</strong>, <strong>Perceptions</strong> <strong>and</strong> <strong>Needs</strong>A Study based on a National Survey• Friends International has a child rights program, run from offices <strong>in</strong> Phnom Penh <strong>and</strong>Siem Reap. The program provides health, education <strong>and</strong> legal services to streetchildren. A lawyer provides legal services.• PJJ (Protection of Juvenile Justice) provides legal services to child victims of sexualexploitation <strong>and</strong> other human rights violations.• The law firm Lean Ch<strong>in</strong>da provides free legal advice <strong>and</strong> representation to laborunions, ma<strong>in</strong>ly <strong>in</strong> relation to disputes heard by the labor arbitration council.• Other private lawyers provide legal aid services on an ad hoc basis, either<strong>in</strong>dependently or through NGOs.• The Faculty of Law <strong>and</strong> Public Affairs at Pannasastra University’s has two legalcl<strong>in</strong>ic programs, a Crim<strong>in</strong>al Law Cl<strong>in</strong>ic (CLC) <strong>and</strong> a Community <strong>Legal</strong> EducationProgram (CLEP). CLC students are tra<strong>in</strong>ed <strong>in</strong> provid<strong>in</strong>g client services <strong>and</strong> get<strong>in</strong>ternships with CDP <strong>and</strong> other legal aid providers. CLEP students provide streetlaw cl<strong>in</strong>ics to local communities. 283.3. PERCEPTIONS OF LEGAL AID3.3.1 Target Groups for <strong>Legal</strong> <strong>Aid</strong> ServicesAccord<strong>in</strong>g to the legal aid survey, the majority of the potential legal aid clients <strong>in</strong>terviewed(56% or 280 of the 500 respondents) were of the view that legal aid should be targeted atpeople <strong>in</strong> the lowest <strong>in</strong>come bracket (see figure 1 below). Those suggest<strong>in</strong>g that legal aidshould be made available to all comers (37% of the <strong>in</strong>terviewees) tended to be more highlyeducated than the rest of the <strong>in</strong>terview sample. For their part, legal aid providers tended totake the same view as most potential clients, with 60% (or 90 of the 150) of the providers<strong>in</strong>terviewed believ<strong>in</strong>g that legal aid services should be provided to poor people (see figure 2).Figure 1: Potential clients’ view of which group legal aid services should target56%0%2%families on < 1$/dayfamilies on < 10$/dayDK/DAfamilies on < 5$/dayeverybody37%5%28 Pannasastra University of <strong>Cambodia</strong>, Faculty of Law <strong>and</strong> Public Affairs, Cl<strong>in</strong>ical <strong>Legal</strong> Education Program,http://www.puc.edu.kh
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