Wrongful Convictions and the Quest for Remedies under the Ethiopian Criminal Justice System
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Date
2015-06
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Addis Ababa University
Abstract
The right to life and liberty and security of individuals are protected under international and
regional treaties and under the FDRE constitution as well. Most of international treaties
guaranteeing for these rights are ratified by Ethiopia. These rights are not absolute as they can
be limited and deprived to enforce criminal law in the form criminal responsibility. But the
process of depriving for the right to life and liberty shall pass via due process of law. The course
of criminal proceeding shall fulfill and realize the basic tenets of fair trial guarantee to minimize
miscarriage of justice that would result and not to convict innocent involved in the process
instead of the real culprits. Cognizant of the fact, human beings are not error proof and practical
administration of criminal justice is influenced by different factors; wrongful conviction of
innocents is inevitable. Furthermore, the proper realization of fair trial rights and safeguards
cannot immune the system from making mistakes. But it reduces the risk of convicting innocent
individuals. Hence wrongful conviction cannot be avoided. Wrongful conviction is the greatest
injustice done to individuals for the crime they did not commit. It results in immeasurable breach
of their civil, political and loss of their socio economic rights. It is potential to shake confidence
of the public against the criminal justice system itself. Though the issue was internationally
recognized and backed by legal framework; the problem of wrongful convictions is not
recognized in the Ethiopian criminal justice system. This thesis has disclosed some of the
wrongful conviction cases in the Ethiopian context. It has been revealed that there are cases of
wrongful convictions in which innocent individuals were imprisoned for many years for the
crime they did not commit. Despite the existence of the problem in the Ethiopian criminal justice
system, there is no legal frame work which allows for review of a final conviction after discovery
of new evidence. The right to claim for compensations as a result of damage caused to the
individuals by state machinery is also not regulated. So it is the focus of this study to appraise
factors contributing for the occurrence of wrongful convictions on one dimension and to
scrutinize the legal lacunae with regard to post-conviction remedies for persons wrongly
convicted in Ethiopia on another dimension.
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Keywords
Wrongful Convictions, Human Rights, Miscarriage of Justice, Review of Criminal Judgment, Post- conviction Remedies, Compensations