The latest installment of Khmer Mekong Films' "Time for Justice" series aired on CTN today and I made sure to catch the program. I'd never watched any of these educational TV spots before and wanted to see if they looked like effective teaching tools.

The program, "Why are we waiting for the trials?", tries to explain to viewers what progress is being made during the largely closed investigative phase. It explores the trials through the questions of a fictional Cambodian family. The son is impatient for trials to start, since there are already five defendants in custody, and his father asks a family friend over to explain the process.

That friend happens to be court spokesman Reach Sambath. After lunch, he describes the concept of defendants' rights and shows the family a brief video about the tribunal. Later, he takes the family to witness Comrade Duch's appeal against provisional detention at the ECCC.

Overall, I thought the spot was well done. It outlined basic concepts of justice and the law, while trying to give the general public a sense of what's happening at the ECCC.

 

Still, such outreach efforts can only be somewhat effective. As I've said before, additional public and media access during the pre-trial phase would be a much stronger method of engaging the population.

 

* Pictured above: KMF filming at the ECCC.