Ethiopian Sentencing Guidelines and their Application : A Case Study in Federal Courts
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Date
2014-06
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Addis Ababa University
Abstract
Sentencing is the most crucial stage in criminal justice system and crime is an inevitable
phenomenon in human social life. In addition, sentencing is a means designed to
give notice for the general public by described punishable crimes and to punish a
criminal convicted by a court of law. In ancient times, punishment was premised on
the principle of “an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth” and punishments were degrading
and inhumane by today‟s standard. Today‟s punishments are relatively humane
and focus on rehabilitation. Many universal human right instruments provide for the
rights of convicted persons and many countries are members of these instruments.
Sentencing disparity is a problem everywhere and countries have adopted sentencing
guidelines to solve this problem. Ethiopia is one of them that adopted and revised the
first and the second sentencing guidelines in 2010 and 2013 respectively. The main
purposes of the sentencing guidelines are to ensure proportionality, consistency, predictability
and fairness of sentencing throughout the country in federal matters. However,
the principles of like cases- uniformity of decision - have not been realized in
many cases; the sentencing guidelines from design to practices reveal that it was unable
to stop unwarranted disparities of sentencing due to different factors. The lack of
clarity of sentencing guidelines, the lack of mutual understanding of the legal practitioners
to the sentencing guidelines, lack of supervision and controlling mechanisms
of the sentencing guidelines can be considered as the root causes of sentencing disparities.
Key words: Sentencing Guidelines, Sentencing Disparities, Criminal Justice System,
And Structured Sentencing.
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Keywords
Sentencing Guidelines, Sentencing Disparities, Criminal Justice System, Structured Sentencing