Demonizing the Judiciary is no help to press freedom

In the past week, the trial of Eskinder Nega, Andualem Aragie and others have again been in the headlines following the recent decision of the Supreme Court to uphold the charges of terrorism and the sentences passed last July. A case in point is a statement by Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ).  The Supreme Court's action has, predictably, been scorned by those bodies which are always prepared to disparage anything that comes out of Ethiopia. Their arguments have been the usual tired complaints that the country's Anti-Terrorism law is muffling the press, with added suggestions that the trail should be seen as a show trial in which the verdicts could not be in the interest of either the press or the judiciary. The normal claim is that the judicial system is as a stooge of the executive and has no institutional or personal independence. This, in fact, merely shows a lack of knowledge of the country's judiciary and its operation. Such allegations also overlook, indeed, deliberately ignore, the sovereign rights of a nation, reminding one of the heyday of colonial attitudes. The facts on the ground are, however, entirely different from what these critics claim despite their continuing efforts in the business of demonizing the government of Ethiopia.

In any criminal proceedings, the most fundamental right underlining the fairness of the trial relates to the rights of the accused. This is, in part, because of the difference of power between the defendant as an individual, and the prosecutor representing a government and who has all the resources of the state to prepare his case. So a central principle in criminal law is to afford all possible protection to the accused, to protect him/her from self incrimination, giving him/her the right to defense counsel and help to collect all evidence necessary to defend their cases. No trial that fails to provide these rights to the accused can be said to be fair and free by any country’s standard. Whatever the differences in legal systems around the world, this is the most fundamental principle for all criminal legal cases – and it operates fully and fairly in Ethiopia. 

In these cases, the trials were conducted in a manner that fully respected these principles. The accused participated fully, presenting their statements of defense, producing their evidence and arguments without any constraint or difficulty. The court heard all the arguments and came to the conclusion that the defense was unable to rebut the charges of the prosecution. Quite simply, the court came to the conclusion, on the evidence presented to it, that the accused were guilty as charged.

The subsequent barrage of criticism of the decision is more revealing of the views of the people about the Ethiopian government than of the judicial processes involved. No judicial verdict which is after all a function of the judicial process can be entirely delinked from the process. Any fair comment must take in to account both the process and the result. These critical comments are also wild in the sense that they appear to emanate from an interest to micro-manage Africa and more specifically in this case African judicial activity. The verdict can only be measured against our own standards in Ethiopia and any attempt to vilify the Ethiopian judiciary, in the absence of any evidence or fact, is tantamount to a denial of the country's sovereign right to hold trial or indeed conduct any form of judicial process. Depressingly, these recent criticisms of the judiciary are no more than a rehash of unproven, exhausted and baseless criticisms, bearing all the hallmarks of a continuing political campaign against Ethiopia which adds nothing constructive for freedom of the press in the country.