PRESS RELEASE
For over a year, an unauthorized group of individuals, posing as members of The Center for Social Development’s (CSD) Board of Directors, have been harassing CSD. They cast doubt on CSD’s integrity and good public image by dragging CSD’s name through the dirt, and caused immeasurable damages by precipitating losses in donor funding, losses in CSD’s reputation, and disruptions of day-to-day operations.
For a long time, CSD has attempted to privately resolve this dispute and chosen to respond minimally to their persistent harassments. Our hope was for these individuals to reconcile with CSD, or voluntarily withdraw from this embarrassing dispute—especially considering the damage they were causing to an NGO that it was once their mission to protect.
Recent events, however, have made it clear that there will be no reconciliation with these individuals, and that they will not stop harassing CSD. For us at CSD, it means that the time for delicacy and diplomacy is over; these individuals’ tactics no longer afford us the luxury of these options—the only option that now remains is for CSD is to stand up and fight for our legitimate rights.
On 13th February 2008, Mr. Vi HOUI, claiming to be the president of the CSD Board of Directors, filed an application for preventive injunction. He accused Ms. SENG Theary of continuing her work as Executive Director (ED) in violation of a “Board decision” to terminate her from that position. His suit asked for preservative relief in the form of an injunction, which would remove Ms. SENG from her position as ED and instate Mr. HOUI as Acting ED.
Many will recall that this so-called “Board decision” to terminate Ms. SENG (made on 20th May 2008) lacked legal force for many reasons—the most straightforward one being that the decision was made without a quorum (of at least 3 board members), as CSD’s Constitution required for the Board to exercise the power of staff dismissal. For those unfamiliar with our history, CSD has attached a more comprehensive explanation of all the reasons why this termination was not valid according to CSD’s Constitution.
In order to show that this matter is incontrovertible, however, we now prefer to reference the opinion of the Ministry of Interior—the authority which governs NGOs. CSD is able to do so because Mr. HOUI in fact filed a complaint with identical accusations with the Ministry of Interior in August 2008. After investigating the matter for four months, and twice offering Mr. HOUI an opportunity to justify his complaint (which he declined), the Ministry of Interior issued a mandate on 27th October 2008 concluding that Mr. HOUI’s complaint should be dismissed:
The Department of Political Affairs has conducted research over the documents submitted by the complainant [Mr. HOUI], and discovered that these documents forged the membership of one out of the three signatory members of the Board of Directors . . .
(and)
The contract of Theary Seng, and Articles 6 and 7 of the Statutes of the Center for Social Development’s 2005 Constitution, prove that the complaint of Mr. Vi Houi cannot be legitimate nor admitted. Thus the Department of Political Affairs will not proceed with this baseless claim.
(Full document attached)
Given this history, CSD finds it baffling that Mr. HOUI brought this lawsuit as the “President of the Board of Directors”, especially because on 13th May 2008—after almost a year without a transparent, accountable, and functioning Board—the Ministry of Interior officially recognized (1) Ms. SENG as the ED of CSD, (2) an amended CSD Constitution, and (3) a functioning, 11-member Board of Directors—which did not include Mr. HOUI as a member (full document attached). Thus, after May 13th 2008, Mr. HOUI completely ceased to be a legitimate member of CSD’s Board—and also ceased to have any of the legal rights associated with such membership, meaning he lacks any legal standing to bring this complaint before the court.
CSD was even more taken aback and bewildered when we were informed that, not only was the application not dismissed on account of Mr. HOUI’s lack of standing, but on 16 June 2009, the Municipal Court actually granted Mr. HOUI a temporary injunction against Ms. SENG.
Taking into account the current laws, it is clear that the order was granted in error; therefore, CSD took immediate steps to protect our self and our rights by filing an appeal against the injunctive order.
In our minds, this whole process raises a very grave concern: If such a baseless claim can persist as long as it has, and if a few individuals are able to abuse the legal system and abuse process to harass and defame a large public institution, which largely specializes in law, how can we expect average, individual citizens to find protection and justice within this system?
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Contact:
Mr. IM Sophea, Deputy Executive Director, Tel: 016.888.552, e-mail: sopheaim@csdcambodia.org
Mr. ANG Udom, CSD’s Attorney/legitimate Board Member, Tel: 012.776.176,
e-mail: udomlaw@online.com.kh
Mr. Barry Van ROOYEN, CSD’s Legal Advisor, Tel: 089 275 409,
e-mail: barryvanrooyen@rocketmail.com
Best regards,
