Civil Party Challenges

One of the more unique aspects of the ECCC is the Civil Party (CP) process, which offers great opportunity for victim participation but also immense practical and procedural implementation issues for the Court. One of our goals is to determine what are the next steps for the Cambodian American diaspora who applied for CP status. CP applicants are represented by both international and national (Cambodian) counsel in court, and are grouped together based on location or subject matter jurisdiction. One practical challenge we need to handle is how to find the right lawyers, who understand the Cambodian American community and can be responsive to its needs. With over 3,000 potential Civil Parties in Case 2, an essential question we have been asking is how to balance fairness, efficiency, and empowerment of victims within the trial context.

Our meetings really illuminated the specific practical and procedural problems that CP status has created. In the first case, there were four civil party groups represented by eight lawyers total, as well as two prosecutors. Questions of equity, due process and efficiency arose as the defense was at times essentially facing five different “prosecution” teams who could be focusing on different charges and presenting varied arguments. Likewise, each witness could be questioned by each individual team of lawyers. Furthermore, there is the looming potential for conflicts when you have one lawyer representing many (often hundreds) of clients with a myriad of crimes suffered. There are also practical questions of how well versed a CP lawyer can be when dealing with such a larger volume of cases, especially when the lawyers may not be engaged on the ground level full time or have longer than a few hours maximum to spend with each client.

We also have a much better understanding of the future of the civil party process in Case 2. The Court will almost certainly decide to limit civil party representation on a day-to-day basis to two lead civil party counsel. These two lawyers will essentially coordinate and represent all the civil party lawyers on a daily basis. If individual CP attorneys feel that it is imperative for them to be in court a certain day, they can submit a specific request to the court. This proposal will limit the number of attorneys in court, the diverging strategies and arguments presented, and the length of the trial to a much more manageable number. There is still the fundamental question of legal voice and adequacy of collective representation before the court, but what is essential is that we find a way to ensure the Cambodian American communities are being represented and heard within whatever Civil party process the court implements.