Ethiopia Justice Sectors: Are They Serving Justice or The Politics?

Abstract

The criminal justice process involves interrogation of the arrested or accused persons by investigative police; investigation by the public prosecutor which institutes charges; and enforcement of committal for trial by the judiciary. As investigative police and public prosecutor enforce the law, their success or failure is not measured by the number of convictions or case attritions, but by the level of their professionalism and integrity in the course of fair, competent, responsible, effective and efficient performance in accordance with the law. Based on this the paper explores and discusses the rights of arrested or accused persons vis-à-vis the role and responsibility of Ethiopia justice sectors. The paper devoted to assess whether the justice sectors in Ethiopia are serving the justice or politics particularly under the governing body. To address these issues descriptive qualitative research design was used to analyze the gathered data. Primary and secondary sources of data were used. Interview with purposively selected professionals from justice sectors including arrested politicians with their advocators was one of the tools for data gathering and analysis. In addition, documents, news, and features from private and government legal websites were used as secondary sources of data. Further to get necessary information from aforementioned sources of data, writer own observation and document analysis were employed as data gathering tools. Using the mentioned data above, this paper has disclosed the existing problems and substantial recommendations to relieve the existing problems.

Keywords: Attorney General, Police Investigation, Judiciary, Role of Government, Justice, Politics and Ethiopia.

DOI: 10.7176/JLPG/114-01

Publication date:October 31^st 2021