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222 Diagnosing Corruption in Ethiopia
above in the criminal justice chain, many of the multiple actions that
might influence a judgment (such as admission of evidence or other
interlocutory motions) were not mentioned, but this may be because
they are subsumed under the general rubric of “purchased” or “directed”
judgments. Still, the failure to report them could be significant because
in very corrupt countries, interviewees usually provide a wealth of such
details.
The informants and reviewers, even government representatives, generally
agreed that civil cases offered the greatest potential for judicial
corruption—logically, because here only judges and entrusted officials
(attorneys, expert witnesses, and those charged with enforcement) have a
role. 22 Civil justice is also an area where political authorities are less likely
to have an interest except in cases involving state-owned enterprises
(SOEs) or where they or their allies happen to have economic dealings.
Although the federal courts have used their database to demonstrate
that private citizens do win cases against the government, it would probably
be worthwhile to do further analysis to determine whether there are
types of cases where this is less true. Critics suggested, for example, that
cases involving SOEs were less likely to be won, or more likely to have
excessive delays and adjournments, because the judge was reluctant to
come to a final decision. If such patterns can be identified, a case could
be made for the exercise of political influence here. Determining political
influence in cases of interest to, but not directly involving, political actors
or agencies would be far more difficult, but this was another hypothesis
offered by critics.
Nonetheless, the strongest claims about corruption in civil cases
involve those between nongovernmental actors and generally took two
forms: (a) the spontaneous (and often small) bribe offered to a judge to
alter his or her decision, and (b) the parties’ reliance on attorneys with a
special relationship with certain judges.
Although no further information was given on the case of the Federal
High Court judge recently convicted for accepting a bribe (based on 17
recorded entreaties to the party) if it was a civil case, it was clearly one of
the former because the bribe requested was said to be between Br 7,000
and Br 10,000 (less than US$1,000). Apocryphal examples provided by
other interviewees suggest that this is not an unusual amount for those
judges who do initiate the process. One informant gave an example of a
judge presenting a party with two judgments—one against the client and
the other worth Br 50,000 in his favor. That these cases exist is undeniable,
but their frequency is much in debate. The judiciary claims they are