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Justice Sector Corruption in Ethiopia 199
Table 5.1 (continued)
Trial and appeal stage
Enforcement
Source: Author.
c. Civil Justice
• Public officials (in judiciary or outside) direct judges’ decisions on
pretrial motions.
• Judges solicit or accept bribes for handling of pretrial
motions.
• Lawyers add unnecessary motions or appeals to be able to
charge clients more.
• Public officials (in judiciary or outside) direct court staff to
misplace files.
• Public officials (in judiciary or outside) direct staff to give them
premature access to judicial decisions.
• Court staff accept or solicit bribes for access to judicial decisions
before they are announced.
• Higher authorities or political elites direct judgments or licenses to
appeal.
• Private attorneys collude with judges for mutual benefit.
• Judges (or higher-level judges on appeal) accept or solicit bribes
for favorable judgments.
• Public or private actors engage in jury tampering (if juries are
used).
• Court staff use knowledge of judgments to “sell” them to
winning parties.
• Lawyers accept bribes from other parties to mishandle cases.
• Governmental actors ignore judicial orders to pay judgments or
take other actions.
• Lawyers or parties negotiate with judges, bailiffs, or other parties
so that enforcement does not occur.
• Court-appointed experts issue under- or overvaluations of
assets.
• Court-appointed agents (in the case of public auction) collude to
manipulate price, take over assets at reduced price, or arrange
with private parties to sell for low bid.
practices (for example, lack of transparency and restrictions on
opposition movements) or, perhaps more important, citizen expectations.
As interviewees and reviewers repeatedly stressed, Ethiopians are
cautious about the views they express publicly and careful about openly
registering complaints. However, they compensate for what they believe
government is not telling them with a rich rumor mill, part of which
may also feed into government’s preoccupation with alleged conspiratorial
movements.