Supreme Court Establishes Electoral Benches

The Federal Supreme Court started establishing benches at all levels of federal courts to handle disputes that arise in the upcoming election.

The Court started establishing benches two weeks ago in line with the proclamation drafted by the National Election Board of Ethiopia that says the benches should get ready a month before the roll-out of voter registration. The benches will review issues that arise during the pre, during and post-election periods.

The Board has scheduled voter registration between April 22, 2020, and May 21, 2020. The general election will be held on August 29, while the final result is expected to be announced between August 30 and September 8. During the period of the election in August, courts will be closed for recess, and the establishment of the benches will fill the gap in their absence.

The main cases these temporary benches will preside over will include disputes due to voter registration, candidate registration, ethical violations, vote counting and the results of the general election.

Cases related to vote counting and results disputes from the election board will be directly forwarded to the bench at the Federal Supreme Court if there is only a complaint against the decision of the Board, the other cases will follow the formal court procedures.

In the city administrations of Addis Abeba and Dire Dawa, only the federal courts have the mandate to handle any electoral dispute.

Selected from federal and regional courts, a total of 400 judges will take a day-long training in two rounds. The first batch of 200 judges has already been trained two weeks ago by the Federal Supreme Court. After the training, the Court will select judges that will preside over the electoral dispute benches.

The selected judges then will receive extensive training on how to resolve cases of electoral disputes, according to Tesfaye Neway, spokesperson of the Federal Courts and vice president of First Instance Court.