The ASEAN Senior Law and Justice Working Group of the Ministry of Justice chaired its first meeting to review requests from the ASEAN Secretariat and to consider the possibility of submitting a number of necessary project proposals to the secretariat while Cambodia is chair of the bloc.

According to the ministry, at the first meeting of the working group on January 18, the working systems, division of duties and responsibilities and the direction of the group were reviewed and prepared.

The working group also examined existing mechanisms and developed new ones related to the ASEAN legal and judicial sectors of the ministry.

Chin Malin, ministry secretary of state and chief of the working group, told The Post on January 19 that the group was set up to strengthen law enforcement and judicial cooperation between Cambodia and other ASEAN member states in the region.

As chair, Cambodia must lead ASEAN work in all areas, including many related to law and justice, he said.

“There will also be meetings of senior officials, ministers and technical working groups in these areas.

“In this meeting, we looked at what has been done in the past in the fields of law and justice in the framework of regional cooperation and related it to what we have not done and what we need to do. In particular, we examined which projects and programmes are important for Cambodia to prepare,” he said.

The working group was formed by justice minister Koeut Rith in December last year and is responsible for coordinating with the ASEAN Secretariat in matters related to the law and for preparing legal documents related to the ASEAN Law and Justice Cooperation Programme.