Al Mariam's Commentaries December 3, 2022
We wanted to dismantle their network of corruption . We tried to move corrupt officials out of their positions and reshuffle them. The court would not allow us. They ordered us to return them to their positions. All 460 of them. Adanech Abibie, Mayor of Addis Ababa, Ethiopia
Author’s Note: While this commentary stands on its own merits, the author strongly recommends reading Part I and Part II to appreciate the enormous complexity and fierce urgency of judicial/justice sector reform in Ethiopia today.
Special note: This commentary has four parts: 1) A nostalgic retrospective when the slightest use of public resources by public officials was considered a mortal sin for which swift action was taken. 2) An update on judicial reform hearing in Parliament. 3) An update on the activities of the recently established anticorruption committee. 4) An anecdotal survey of individuals from diverse professions and perspectives on how to implement anticorruption reform in the judicial sector.
Nostalgic about the good old days. Walking down memory lane… The way it was!
Corruption has been around since the dawn of civilization.
Ethiopia is no exception to the rule of corruption.
But there was a time in Ethiopia when the slightest use of public resources for personal convenience was treated with extreme attention and instant correction.
The copy of the memorandum below shows how personal ethics and public integrity particularly in the Ethiopian military was upheld at the very highest standards.
The memorandum reproduced below is about a Lieutenant Demessie Bulto whose pay was docked for making a personal telephone call on an official line which cost 0.30 cents.
Lieutenant Demessie Bulto went on to become Maj. General Demissie Bulto, one of the greatest Ethiopian combat generals/heroes of all time.
General Demissie successfully led Ethiopian troops to victory in numerous campaigns and was admired as a brilliant tactician, consummate professional and unrepentant Ethiopia patriot. (His military campaigns briefly presented in video here.)
Translation:
Memorandum #521/illegible
Ethiopian Imperial Government
Honor (Crown) Guard Command
To: Honor Guards Paymaster
One of our members in the First Command, identification number 4707, Lieutenant Demissie Bulto, used a telephone line established for the Honor (Crown) Guards on 4/12/1952 to make a personal call to Jimma incurring a cost of $o.30/thirty cents. It is ordered that said amount be recovered by deducting from his November 1953 monthly salary.
Haile Desta, Major
Cc: Honor Guards General Command
Today, sixty three years after that memo was written, we are talking about those in public office in Ethiopia stealing hundreds of thousands and millions of birr without even blinking an eye.
General Demissie and all the other great generals and troops of the past did not fight and die so we can live in an Ethiopia drowning in corruption and graft.
Ethiopia’s generals and their troops today are not fighting and dying to see corruption choking the lives of Ethiopian citizens.
All Ethiopians must fight corruption, day and night. Rain, shine, lightening, flood, fire or earthquake.
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The other shoe has dropped
On November 17, 2022, PM Abiy announced the establishment of a 7-person national anti-corruption committee which includes the Attorney General and the head of the Ethiopian National Intelligence and Security Service.
This Committee has three sub-committees, composed of legal, finance and information expertise, and aims to coordinate the national anti-corruption campaign.
On December 2, 2022, the other shoe dropped.
In a press briefing, Attorney General Gideon informed the public (video above) that the recently established anti-corruption committee
is using the full legal powers of the government to coordinate a broad anticorruption campaign to reverse the trend in uncontrolled corruption.
will have major focus on corruption in land distribution and acquisition, assignment of public housing and cleanup of the graft-ridden customs agency.
will give special priority to the justice and security sectors and agencies involved in land administration which are operating as organized criminal enterprises.
will first focus on corruption in Addis Ababa and surrounding areas.
has identified networks of corruption brokers, police, judges, prosecutors and others who benefit from illegal transactions and corrupt practices.
has started arresting corruption suspects and will continue to do so with public support, participation and involvement in fingering suspects.
has identified individuals engaged in abuse of power in the security and justice sectors who have been engaged in extortion and racketeering activities by forcing individuals and businesses to make bribe payments.
has taken into custody various corruption suspects including the federal government’s director of financial security, top officials in the information network agency and in the national security office.
has taken into custody prosecutors, civil servants, corrections/prison administrators, police officials and judges suspected of corruption involvement and is preparing prosecution.
is seeking injunctions against officials who did not comply with the asset disclosure law and failed to register their assets. This investigation will be widened and exemplary legal action taken including asset confiscation and imprisonment.
has received 250 public reports with evidence and tips of corruption, and organized investigative teams are sifting through evidence for prosecution.
will replicate the anticorruption campaign at the kilil level.
will announce the names of major corruption suspects in custody soon.
urges greater public cooperation in reporting suspected cases of corruption.
Director General of the National Intelligence and Security Service and member of the anticorruption committee, Temesgen Tiruneh, said corruption is one of three existential national security threats:
Corruption or malpractice, in addition to being the cause for the high cost of living and unemployment in the country, has been confirmed by research that it is a third level threat to national security.
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The elephant in the dining room
In part II of this commentary series, I used the idiom “the elephant in the judicial living room” to allude to the fact that the structural reforms in the judicial sector do not squarely focus on and address the core problem of corruption. Corruption mitigation and remediation is expected to be a byproduct of gradual structural reform.
To say Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed is talking about the elephant in the judicial living room is an understatement. He told Parliament:
The major problem with theft (corruption) is that judges are thieves (corrupt). Reform is most needed in the court system. The courts have become a den of thieves.
Today, everyone is talking about the judicial elephant in the living room.
The question now is what to do about the elephant.
Metaphorically, “How do you eat an elephant that is in the dining room?”
It is a truism that “corruption is a global problem.”
Transparency International, the “global coalition against corruption” proclaims:
Corruption erodes trust, weakens democracy, hampers economic development and further exacerbates inequality, poverty, social division and the environmental crisis.
Corruption is a hydra headed monster with chameleon manifestations.
Corruption manifests itself when public servants demand or take money (bribes) or other things of value to perform the very duties they are hired to perform.
When politicians and bureaucrats engage in fraud, abuse, misuse and waste of public resources, they engage in corruption.
When those in power engage in cronyism ( appointment to positions of authority without regard to merit) and nepotism (giving jobs, contracts and other opportunities to family, friends and relatives), they are also engaged in corruption.
Corruption as cancer
grows in the body politic, sometimes imperceptibly, it has the ability rapidly and insidiously to infiltrate and destroy the organs of the state. Once embedded, it is very difficult to cut out. Metastasis across society is common. It prevents countries from developing and reaching their full potential, and destroys the ethical and moral foundation of a state.
Corruption is a cancer that occurs in all parts of Ethiopian society- bureaucracies, the courts, businesses, the media, academia and in civil society.
Corruption touches everyone: politicians, government officials, public servants, businesspeople and members of the public.
PM Abiy recently told Parliament corruption is not just a cancer but also a self-replicating virus:
Bribe givers create bribe takers. Bribe takers in turn create a messed-up process. It is a vicious circle. We cannot escape it.
As a virus, corruption is highly adaptable to different contexts and changing circumstances. Like a virus, corruption evolves in response to changes in the laws, regulations, new practices and even technology.
Corruption happens not only in darkness and in the shadows but also on Instagram as PM Abiy publicly declared.
So, how do you deal with endemic, systemic, structural corruption?
More specifically, how do you deal with the corruption elephant in the judicial sector?
The single most important lesson from successful anti-corruption efforts is that there are no quick fixes.
There is no magic wand that can be waived at corruption and make it go away.
Many anticorruption campaigns have failed because of “over-large ‘design-reality gaps’’’ (“mismatch between design and reality on the ground”).
In other words, energetic anti-corruption campaigners have failed because they bit more than they can chew.
The late South African Bishop Desmond Tutu in a documentary organized around two profound questions (“What’s wrong with the world?” and “What can we do about it?”, observed: “There is only one way to eat an elephant: a bite at a time.”
In other words, Tutu metaphorically is saying one cannot change the world in one fell swoop but in small and decisive incremental steps. So, it must also be with corruption.
Corruption: Why have things fallen apart in the Ethiopian justice/ judicial sectors?
Having listened to PM Abiy Ahmed speak of corruption in Ethiopia, especially in the judicial sector, one has to ask, “Why have things fallen apart in the Ethiopian justice/judicial sectors?”
The great African author Chinua Achebe in his book (“Things Fall Apart”) asked why things fell apart in colonial Nigeria (writ large, I would argue in Africa).
Achebe fingered colonialism as the culprit:
The white man is very clever. He came quietly and peaceably with his religion. We were amused at his foolishness and allowed him to stay. Now he has won our brothers, and our clan can no longer act like one. He has put a knife on the things that held us together and we have fallen apart. (Italics added,)
In “Man of the People”, Achebe turned his quill to African leaders in post-colonial Nigeria (Africa) to explain why things continued to fall apart after the end of colonialism.
Achebe pointed his index finger at the culture of corruption and the rise of predatory elites for things falling apart in Nigeria (Africa.)
The African elite that replaced the white colonial masters were merely white faces wearing black masks who enriched themselves by preying on the wretched masses. The people were forced to accept corruption as a normal part of social and political life, thereby nurturing a culture of corruption.
Achebe’s character perplexed in the extreme asks:
What a fool ! Whose son is he? Was he not here when the white men were eating? What did he do about it ? Where was he when Chief Nanga fought and drove the white men away? Why is he envious now that the warrior is eating the rewards of his courage ? If he was Chief Nanga, would he not do much worse?”
“Eating, eating and more eating!” Is that what corruption is all about?
A few eat and millions starve?
So, why do things fall apart in Ethiopia?
It is hard to blame colonialism for corruption as Ethiopia had never been a colony?
Could corruption be something embedded in the Ethiopia political and civic culture in much the same way as Achebe’s post-independence Nigeria?
More specifically, why have things fallen apart so badly that Prime Minister Abiy was compelled to name, shame and give a public dressing down to the justice/judicial sector before Parliament?
PM Abiy said the culture of corruption in the judicial sector has become vampiric.
In much the same way as the vampires of popular folklore who take human form and survive by sucking the blood of living people at night, corrupt judges, police nd prosecutors suck the blood of the people seeking justice before the not only in the darkness of secrecy but also on Instagram social media.
The practice of corruption has spread so far and deep that self-styled cultural heroes play with the scales of justice bragging on social media about who they jailed and released based on the amount of bribes they received.
Hearing before the Judiciary Committee of the House of People’s Representatives
It is highly encouraging that the Federal Parliament oversees and monitors the constitutional performance of the Federal Judiciary.
On November 2, 2022, the Judiciary Committee of the House of People’s Representatives held a hearing to review progress, issues and challenges in implementation of judicial reform.
The video recording of the hearing is quite informative and educational for those interested in the operation of the judiciary.
In the first part of the video, the hearing covered a broad range of issues including improvements in case management, reduction of delay and efficiency improvements in service delivery at the First Instance High Court, Federal Court and Sharia Court levels.
In the second part of the video (below), the hearing covered issues related to reform outcomes, modernization of operations and services, problems in controlling judicial wrongdoing , ineffectiveness of the judicial council, improvements in opportunities for women on the bench, and transformation of the ethical landscape of the judicial system.
While the hearing videos are long, almost 6 hours, it is mandatory for anyone interested in learning about the judicial sector and helping in its improvements to patiently watch and learn from it.
Unfortunately, since the posting of the video less than one thousand people have bothered to open it.
How do you eat the elephant sitting in the judicial dining room?
Following my interview (below) on Ethiopian Broadcasting Corporation (EBC) on judicial sector reform in Ethiopia in August 2022, I got quite a bit of feedback from people relating to me their experiences in the Ethiopian justice system. Among these were individuals with intimate knowledge of the justice system and diasporans who have had contact with the justice/judicial process, mostly involving civil and regulatory matters.
Anecdotal survey of corruption perception and obstacles to reform implementation in the judicial sector
Based on the feedback I got, I decided to reach out to those in my network to get a sense of their opinions, views and ideas about justice/judicial reform in Ethiopia.
As a result, I had the privilege of talking to a random smattering of current and former Ethiopian officials at various levels, politicians, bureaucrats, judges, prosecutors and members of the private bar in Ethiopia. I also had opportunities to talk to diaspora Ethiopians across professions (doctors, lawyers, faith leaders, businesspersons, young diaspora men and women in the tech sector, etc.)—to tap their perceptions and ideas on the judicial/justice sector reforms and implementation.
My anecdotal conversations about justice/judicial sector reform was guided by one question: “What does a successful implementation of justice/judicial reform in Ethiopia looks like to you?”
I avoided the usual question, “What are your concerns about justice/judicial reform in Ethiopia?” (Unfortunately, many gravitated towards analysis of the problem of corruption than offering solutions.)
Guiding a conversation by talking about concerns usually ends up in ideas that accentuate the negative and why things are likely to fail.
Concerns often reflect negative experiences. There is not a single person, save those involved in corruption, in Ethiopia who does not have deep concerns about corruption.
Everyone from the Prime Minster to the man/woman in the street have concerns. Many are much more than concerned.
They are angry, frustrated, bitter, exasperated, outraged and fuming.
https://zehabesha.com/taking-a-bite-out-of-the-corruption-elephant-in-the-ethiopian-judicial-sector/
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