Supreme Court Amends Litigation Fees

Jul 15 , 2023

A new rule to update the almost half-century-old fees for court services was put forth by the Federal Supreme Court. The draft has 26 articles divided into six sections, covering a wide range of topics concerning court fees and payment methods, as well as recognising the basic core of the right to seek justice. Rahel Yohannes, assistant judge at the federal supreme court, observes that service fees collected from the courts do not cover the administrative costs noting the importance of revisiting prices to ensure the financial stability of the judiciary. Efforts to repeal the current court fee regulation has been started in 2021 after the supreme court hired consultants to address the concern. Basing the centrepiece on the findings of the consultants which mainly ascribed to the outdated nature of the regulation the supreme court embarked on the drafting process. Since then the draft has been revised three times and it was put before Parliament three weeks ago. Ethiopian courts were formally established in 1942, with the adoption of the Judicial Administration Proclamation. However, the legal instrument controlling court fees was adopted before the civil procedure code which specified the service fees.