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Justice Sector Corruption in Ethiopia 213
unexplained transfers, dismissals, and some resignations by “victims of
harassment.” Few specific examples were cited, and it is impossible to
verify the claims in any case. Still, given the ongoing evolution of the
system and the novelty of performance-based evaluations, it is not
surprising that judges, despite their constitutionally guaranteed independence
and tenure, are cautious about how their behavior is perceived
by their immediate superiors and by the members of the
judicial administrative commissions.
To their credit, the federal courts and some regional ones are attempting
to alter their own procedures to combat the impression that personnel
policy is systematically politicized, whatever real practices may
underlie it. The Federal Supreme Court is considering the introduction of
an examination for all candidates as well as the announcement of openings
and the publication of the list of nominees before their appointment.
Both would be positive steps.
The court is also working toward standardizing salaries and thus reversing
a federal rule (apparently not applicable to regional courts) that sets
salaries for entering judges based on what they earned in their prior positions.
Currently, the situation leads to injustices, as in the case of a First
Instance judge hired from a state bank whose entering salary of Br 3,000
exceeded the Br 2,100 normally paid to entrants and the Br 2,600 earned
by a colleague who had six years on the bench.
A more transparent policy and more open competition for the transfer
of judges from regional courts would also help. Even the two former
regional judges who had “received invitations” to the federal bench could
not explain why they were chosen. Similar comments apply to the federal
prosecutors (no regional prosecutors were interviewed). Although the
federal ministry does advertise openings, the criteria used for selecting
among the applicants (or for transferring individuals from regional positions)
are anything but transparent.
Lack of transparency does not translate into a conspiracy, but it certainly
leaves room to imagine one. It does not help that party recruiters
in the law schools are reputed to tell students that party membership is
a ticket to a government job. The claims are doubtless exaggerated, but
absent a better understanding of what does count, they may convince a
lot of people and affect their decisions about whether to join the sector
and remain within it. Informants also mentioned that the prevailing
uncertainty could encourage corruption: where individuals are unclear
about how long they will keep their jobs, they may be more easily
convinced to take advantage of them while they can.