ECCC, Case 001, Issue 19

The role of Civil Parties took center stage this week, as Civil Party lawyers and the Defense met head on over an array of legal issues concerning Civil Parties. In view of the ECCC’s unique status as pioneer of civil party participation in international/internationalized criminal proceedings, decisions issued by the Chamber this week represented milestones in the ECCC’s jurisprudence. It was finally pronounced that Civil Parties do not have standing to participate in the sentencing of the Accused. Also, Civil Party lawyers do not have standing to question the Accused and certain witnesses on the topic of the Accused’s character. 

From Tuesday afternoon through Thursday morning, challenges to Civil Party applications were presented by the Defense as scheduled. In response, Civil Party lawyers adopted a two-fold strategy. They first challenged the right of the Defense to raise objections to admissibility at this late stage of the proceedings. After the Chamber held that it would issue judgment on this preliminary issue together with its decision on the merits, Civil Party lawyers then submitted that the Chamber could admit Civil Party applications notwithstanding the absence of corroborating documents. That proceedings this week ended as scheduled, despite the numerous issues raised, debated, and resolved, attests to the Chamber’s general success in effectively ensuring the expeditiousness of proceedings. The hearing of Civil Parties’ testimonies was completed this week, including the hearing of the expert testimony of a psychologist on the psychological consequences of the crimes at S21 on victims and Cambodian society, and on possible forms of reparations. The hearing of testimony on the Accused’s character began on Thursday afternoon.