National Assembly OKs mining law amendments
National Assembly OKs mining law amendments
The National Assembly on Thursday approved amendments to Cambodia’s mining laws by revising 11 articles, in a move that would give officials the power to hand out fines or punishments instead of sending all disputes to court.
In a full plenary session last week, 112 parliamentarians approved the draft amendments to the mining law.
According to an announcement on the amendments, the existing mining law, which was drafted in 2001, calls for all mining disputes to be sent to court, regardless of the severity of the issue.
“The law, enacted in 2001, indicates that all enforcement must be done though court processes, regardless of the of the infraction.
“The new law will allow the ministry to first impose a fine and, in case of recidivism [repeat offending], a ministry official could file a complaint to the court,” said Dith Tina, secretary of state at the Ministry of Mines and Energy.
“We look for more efficiency and effectiveness in law enforcement,” he said, adding that the act will serve to streamline disputes within the mining sector.
The new articles give officials from Cambodia’s Ministry of Energy the authority to fine perpetrators who are found to have broken laws governing the mining sector.
The announcement also said that in the past 16 years Cambodia’s Ministry of Energy had sent only 16 cases from the mining sector to court, while only three of those have been finalised.
For minor cases, the ministry just banned or educated the perpetrators without issuing penalties, resulting in an increase in illegal mining activity, so the law was amended to better deal with such cases.
