"Lawyer", a profession of high social status and standing and so it must be focus destination for a large numbers of prospective graduate students. Cambodia, one of the world's stigmatized countries, is now emerging into the world stage and proving itself of global capacity. Walking on a track toward catering prosperity for Cambodian people, countless resource is needed; spiritually and materialistically. One of the most important resources toward prosperity for its people, as firmly claimed by both the governing parties: Cambodian People's Party and Funcinpec and the opposite party, is the "rule of law." The scope of this article is to navigate around the rule-of-law environment in Cambodia and the author's personal perspective. However, before stepping toward rule of law, legal studies and profession would be an indispensable factor. By and large, legal institutes are being born to convert Cambodia into the civilized country; however, we see that progression is much slower than what we have expected and analyzed, with reference to internal and external resources. Most of the people see legal practitioners and institutes are falling on the downward spiral, due to Cambodian law schools are lacking behind those of the region and the world, unstable justice systems, legal loopholes, unqualified legal practitioners and one of the most important thing: "protracted conflict over the presidency chair of the Bar Association of the Kingdom of Cambodia (BAKC)." So what are those stated disadvantages? One-by-one brief glimpse into each problem will be depicted in the following. I. Cambodian Law Schools The author of this article does not single-mindedly target the state-owned Royal University of Law and Economics alone, but talking about all universities that stipulate Bachelor of Law into their educational curriculums. Total institution such as the law school shall be the ultimate initiative for students' professional lives and other like successes. We do not have to follow the West's style, though their law schools are world widely recognized, but the dean, rector, president and other faculty members shall seek out the way to make their clients truly professional and confident after graduation. Another problem is in regard to the lecturers. We do and definitely need genuinely professional and experienced lectures to give us the lectures on any specific subject or subject of his or her expertise. In today's corporate world, law school is no longer an institution to enlighten students' spirit, but it single-mindedly focus on profit; this would bring great danger to the future of Cambodia. II. Approaches to Legal Studies The overall idea learning law is to know that what elements that make law a good law, realizing that whether any law practitioners or politicians are complying or contradicting the law. For all these purposes, neutral and scientific approach to legal study is the must. We do need law school that understand and accept and practice these approaches which are the ultimate initiative toward legal professionalism. So far, due to political orientation or inference, it makes both the students and lectures hard to realize that what the true world of legal study and practice is. III. Lawyers' Consequences As repercussion from negative points imposed by the law schools, lawyers in Cambodia do not have well prospective and social dignity. It is due to the reason that most of them have not experienced the strict and truly neutral law students' disciplines, Cambodian people are unaccustomed to having lawyers for conflict resolution and finally the weakness in term of materialism and spirit of the Bar Association of the Kingdom of Cambodia. However, there is always a way out, instigate the true legal spirit today for its betterment tomorrow. |
