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232 Diagnosing Corruption in Ethiopia
12. The percentage of detainees who are still awaiting trial is unsatisfactorily high,
as it is in most of Africa and other developing regions (EHRC 2008). It is
worth noting that the federal judiciary contested the commission’s numbers.
13. Apparently some donors have encouraged Ethiopia to develop paralegal services
to make up for the shortage of lawyers, but progress has been slow.
14. This same individual also tried to argue that “corruption” was a Western concept
and had a different meaning in Ethiopia but eventually desisted there as
well.
15. These figures are approximations. As discussed later, apparently none of these
offices has databases to track their work, or if they do, they are not organized
to allow an identification of different types of cases.
16. The FEACC noted only one exception, a case that involved a “substantial
amount” of money.
17. Corruption in other system administration areas also was not mentioned by
interviewees even when presented with the full table. A recent audit did suggest
errors in the federal judiciary’s management of funds but without implying
corruption (Tadesse 2009). In other countries, mismanagement of budgets
and procurement (especially for police forces) is a common complaint, and
any corruption may involve not only administrators but also higher-level officials.
In Brazil, where judicial corruption is only moderate, one famous case
from the late 1990s involved a federal judge who took kickbacks on a court
construction project.
18. This practice has been reported in various Latin American nations, beginning
with the tribus legales (“legal tribes”) formed around Venezuelan political parties
represented in that country’s judicial council, from its creation in 1969 to
its elimination in 2000 (Hammergren 2002). The practice has also been
reported, albeit not as well documented, in several African countries.
19. Two examples are (a) a former federal minister of justice in Argentina who
twice took control of the Buenos Aires police (a notoriously corrupt body),
and (b) a former university administrator in Mexico who directed the
Mexico City police during the early 2000s. Both attempted major reforms
and encountered considerable hostility from career officers and their political
patrons. Although not serving as police commissioner, Mayor Rudy
Giuliani’s championing of the New York City reforms of the 1990s is another
example—and his conflicts with a series of commissioners are also well
known.
20. This lack of transparency also contrasts with reportedly more transparent
practices in the rest of the public sector.
21. The recruitment of judges from an overrepresented region not only conflicts
with the underlying policy (to increase ethnic diversity) but also feeds the
general impression that certain nationalities are inevitably favored.