The Right to Representation by Criminal Defense Counsel in Ethiopia: A Critical Analysis

This paper explores and critically reflects on the legal foundations and the practice of criminal defense in Ethiopia within the overall due process framework of a fair criminal trial. A brief review of Ethiopian constitutional history shows that the right to representation by legal counsel has been one of the fundamental due process rights granted to accused persons in criminal proceedings. The constitutional right to counsel is, however, not specified by detailed legal provisions. A logical consequence of this is that the enjoyment of this right is fraught with legal and practical problems. While the legal problems, among other things, include obscurity regarding the scope and content of the right, the practical problems include absence of public defense offices at district levels where the vast majority of criminal proceedings take place. Consequently, accused persons appear during trials without the aid of legal counsel; they are in fact deprived of their due process rights and marginalized. This has a number of legal ramifications both to the accused and the criminal justice system. In sum, the constitutional provision of the right to criminal defense counsel is undelivered and remains a hollow promise. It is therefore difficult to uphold the constitutional norms which underlie criminal trial process such as procedural justice, as well as the legitimacy of the government. The justice sectors are responsible to ensuring due process and equal protection. Substantial justice reforms are needed at all levels.     

Of Shaming and Bargaining: African States and the Universal Periodic Review of the United Nations Human Rights Council

The Universal Periodic Review (UPR) of the United Nations HumanRights Council promises to be a useful tool for examining humanrights situations in states in an objective, non-selective,universal and transparent manner. It is an undertaking imbuedwith a shift from the former Commission's policies and practiceof shaming to a new consensual and cooperative model of humanrights evaluation. The experience of African countries, bothduring the negotiation over its normative and institutionalframework and in the two sessions of the Working Group on UPR,lays bare the challenges to the new human rights body and itsunique peer review mechanism. The article critically examinesthe participation of African countries in the UPR and highlightssome of the issues that deserve, at this early stage, the attentionof all those who mind to see the objectives of the UPR fullyrealised.