THE CEROC

រដ្ឋសភាខ្មែររវល់កែប្រែរដ្ឋធម្មនុញ្ញអនុញ្ញាតអោយដកសញ្ជាតិខ្មែរពីកំណេីត តោះមេីលប្រវត្តិការធ្វេីវិសោធនកម្ម

V. Conclusion

Constitutional amendments in Cambodia are relatively unremarkable if measured quantitatively. Eleven amendments being made over the course of three decades might be considered a relatively high frequency, but not to the extent of being a cause of existential concern. Rather, amendment practice in Cambodia is interesting for a number of deeper, qualitative reasons. First, in many ways echoing the constitution-making process in 1993, the amendment process provided for by the Constitution is remarkably non-participatory. This, I would argue, reflects the extent to which the former process (a) took place before participation came to be seen as an international norm, 106 (b) was a product of a peace-making process that brought to an end a long period of civil war, and (c) was understood as a pact between the elites who led the parties to that conflict. 107 Hence, while the Cambodian Constitution has come to structure many everyday political contestations, with constitutional principles and vocabularies being cited by Cambodians from outside the political elite, formal amendment practice – and the institutions that enact it – has been largely dominated by Cambodia’s political elites, to the exclusion of other voices.

Hence, amendment practice in Cambodia can be understood to have been focused on adjusting, and ultimately undermining, the elite political settlement that underlay the 1993 constitution-making process. Since the peace-building and democratisation process – in which the 1993 constitution-making process was embedded – was itself precipitated by an effective stalemate between the parties to Cambodia’s long-running civil war, and since the results of the 1993, UN-administered elections failed to return a conclusive win for any one party, Cambodia’s post-conflict constitutional order prioritised power-sharing. In the decade or so aſter 1993, amendment practice was characterised by the uneasy pursuit of power-sharing arrangements by political parties that increasingly distrusted one another. Hence, amendments have been focused almost entirely either on adjusting political processes relating to the formation of coalition governments aſter an election, or on establishing new institutions to placate coalition partners and their clients. As such, amendment practice from this time supports the assessment of Laurrie Nathan, that ‘ signing a peace accord does not necessarily mark the end of the conflict resolution process, which might extend into the constitution-making phase’, such that the latter becomes ‘an arena of contestation and an opportunity to renegotiate the terms of the CPA [comprehensive peace agreement]’. 108 Taking this insight a step further, evidence from Cambodia also suggests that amendment practice in the years thereaſter might also provide insights into the aſterlife of a peace agreement.

Reflecting the gradual deterioration and eventual disintegration in Cambodia’s post-conflict political settlement, then, amendment practice in Cambodia has substantively shiſted. Specifically, whereas amendments between 1994 and 2014 (inclusive) were geared towards securing compromises and facilitating coalitions between political parties (and their respective elites), those amendments that came in 2018 have subsequently sought to consolidate and legitimise the dominance of the CPP. In the latter regard, recent amendments have either precluded the CPP’s opponents from competing in elections or holding high-office, and centralised power over the formation of new governments in the hands of political parties rather than the National Assembly. It is also interesting to note, here, the extent to which the shiſt in amendment practice has been procedural as well as substantive. Of course, one should be careful not to overstate the role of the National Assembly in the first two and a half decades aſter 1993, given the extent to which the Parliament was considered to be weak and bereſt of confidence. Nevertheless, Cambodia’s transition – which has elsewhere been called ‘backsliding’ or ‘reautocratisation’ – has been reflected not only in the substance of constitutional amendments, but also – procedurally – in the fact that constitutional amendments that used to emerge primarily from the legislature branch now tend to emerge (at least unofficially) from the executive branch.