PAÑÑASASTRA UNIVERSITY OF CAMBODIA
Faculty of Law and Public Affairs
Clinical Legal Education Program
 

Beginning October, 2003 Pannasastra University of Cambodia (PUC), in a collaborative effort with the Open Society Justice Initiative (Justice Initiative), began implementing a Clinic Legal Education Program at the PUC Faculty of Law and Public Affairs. The program was placed under the direction of Professor Bruce A. Lasky, a Justice Initiative consultant and legal fellow.

Paññasastra University is an English based undergraduate and graduate accredited academic institution that models itself a progressive North American style of Education. It requires student to both identify their major areas of studies while further requiring them to enroll in and complete an extensive general studies academic program. The teaching of critical thinking and analysis is an integral part of the scholastic agenda. For many of these reasons, the justices Initiative identified and closed PUC as a model institution to begin a clinical legal education program.

This program effort has followed a long line of similar Justice Initiative operational plans. Since 1998 the Justice Initiative has led the process of establishing and supporting operations of numerous clinical legal education programs, first in countries or Eastern Europe and the Soviet  Union and since 2001, worldwide.

Clinical legal education is inherently a cross-cutting theme. If carried out with pedagogical integrity, it lays a foundation for law students to carry with them, throughout their professional careers as attorneys, a greater sense of professional commitment to the ethics and values of public service. It provides needed legal services to the community outside of the law school in an almost limitless array of doctrinal areas of the law. It immerses the legal academy -both students and teachers -in the world as actors, not merely observers. Clinical legal education is one of the most successful innovations in legal education in the last thirty years.

Structure Should Method of the Clinical Legal Education Program:

The Paññasastra University of Cambodia- Clinical Legal Education Program is a two-section program. It is divided into a Criminal Law (CL) Section and Community Legal Education Program (CLEP), formerly referrd as "Street Law" Section. Both Sections began in late January 2004. The Criminal Law Section, which is a year-long program, is being conducted in conjunction with the Cambodian Defenders Project, a Cambodian NGO. The program currently has six law students, all graduate. Students in this section receive a half year in-class intensive academic and practical legal education and training, including such areas as investigations, interviews, witness examination techniques, evidence, etc. The students will then spend the second half of the year working at the Cambodian Defenders Project and other legal aid NGOs where they will engage in assisting in live client representation activities, under both the supervision of individual liccl1sed Cambodia lawyers and Professor So Sovichea.

The CLEP, which consists of 17 students, both law and non-law, is a six month program. This program, with the mentoring help of the Community Legal, a Cambodian NGO, teaches students law and human rights; how to teach these subjects through progressive training techniques; and then requires these students to apply and pass on these newly acquired skills and knowledge to persons in various Cambodian community settings in both Phnom Penh and the rural communities. One significant and hopeful eventual focus of the Street Law Program is to integrate this program it into the Cambodian public school system.

Both Clinic sections have been made an elective part of the PUC Legal Studies Curriculum and students enrolled in either section receive academic credits which apply toward their graduation requirements.

Financial and Technical Program Support:

In the launching and maintenance of this progressive educational project, PUC has committed to provide the necessary working environment (office, meetings with professors and students, etc.) and to provide appropriate space for the Clinical center, basic facilities for the Clinical center and student accessibility. The Justice initiative has committed to undertake costs for launching the Clinic and its administration (equipment of the Clinical center, Clinical library, operational costs related to provision of legal aid and public outreach) and to provide additional investments for training of local staff in clinical legal education and management matters through local seminars and other mediums.

Additional Resources and Benefits Provided by the Clinical Program:

In addition to the overall practical and academic legal training provided through both Clinic sections, the program provides a number of additional resources to the students selected to participate.

Some of these resources and benefits, which are being or will be provided, include:

While both sections of the Clinic are in their primary stages, the program has gotten off to a strong start. The students are engaged in .learning and are eager. They have recently completed term one of both sections and have done well. .Such signs point to a continuous and successful program.