Lower Court Gets More Power

If the parliament legislates the bill, the Federal First Instance Court will be able to review cases concerning up to 10 million Br, 20 times higher than the current cutoff of half a million Birr.

Drafted by the Law & Justice Advisory Council, which was formed by Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed (PhD) to reform the justice system, the draft federal courts proclamation extends the jurisdiction of the court. The bill was tabled to the parliament on December 19, 2019.

The high inflation in the economy and the aim of making the High Court an appellate one, are the major reasons for the amendment, according to Tesfaye Neway, spokesperson of the Federal Courts and vice president of First Instance Court.

The bill also proposes increasing the number of presiding judges on trials at the First Instance Court. Currently, only one judge is presiding over cases there.

Additionally, it calls for the High Court gaining the jurisdiction to review cases based on the type of cases rather than the amount of money involved. The High Court will review international cases, cases that concern nationality issues, and cases that had rulings in foreign countries, according to the bill.

To make the judicial system free, neutral, efficient and predictable, it was important to work on multi-disciplinary reforms by identifying gaps and corrections in the system, according to Solomon Ejigu, communications director at the Federal Supreme Court.

The three committees under a Judicial Reform Advisory Council, which is composed of 15 law professionals, has been conducting research and proposed to amend the federal judicial administration and courts proclamations. The three committees have also been working on administrative issues, a legal framework and services.

The first team works on the independence, neutrality and accountability of the judicial system by conducting studies and modifying the previous federal judicial administration proclamation, while the second is engaged in the federal courts' proclamation. The third committee is involved in subjects that affect judicial proceedings and summarises them by gathering ideas for input to the draft proposals.