THE RIGHT TO FAIR TRIAL IN ETHIOPIA: SOME SELECTED CASES OF OROMO POLITICAL PRISONERS

Abstract

The study examines the extent to which the right to a fair trial of political prisoners which get recognition under Ethiopian laws and international and regional convention ratified by Ethiopia is implemented during the Pretrial and trial phase. The study mainly employed doctrinal and non-doctrinal legal research and uses qualitative methods of legal analysis, case analysis, and analysis of practice. In addition to analyzing the existing legal framework and practice, interviews with judges, Public prosecutors, Defense lawyers, and police officers were conducted. Even though the right to a fair trial is recognized under the Ethiopian legal system and conventions ratified by Ethiopia, in practice almost all principles of right to a fair trial of political prisonersare not respected during the pretrial and trial stage. In most cases,a decision given by the court and public prosecutor is not respected by the police and other security body.There is direct and indirect influence on the judiciary body by other organs of government. Police investigators are not regularly trained on the development of human rights, and in most cases, they are not held accountable when they violated the rights of suspects. The other issue is thatthe power of the police is not limited and they lack the skill to technically investigate a case in a short time, and these are the major challenge for the implementation of the right to a fair trial. finally, it argues that the court has to be independent of direct and indirect influence and the decision rendered by it has to be respected by other organs of the government, police investigators have to be held accountable in a case where they violate the right of suspects, and investigating police officer needs periodic training on issues of human rights and further training is also needed to improve their skills to enable them to finish investigations and gather evidence on time