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314 Diagnosing Corruption in Ethiopia
the municipal courts and the land clearance commission or land administration
board. Appellate courts, which are established at zonal and
regional levels, are usually far away from the community, entail high costs,
and can take a long time to issue decisions.
It is estimated that land disputes may constitute at least 50 percent of
cases in the formal court system. Decisions at the First Instance court
level tend to favor the government in land-issue litigation, which constitute
a high percentage of longstanding cases. One judge reported that as
many as 3,000 of the 4,000 cases in his court are land-related. Moreover,
the judge reported that most crimes committed currently in the region,
such as arson and homicide, are related to land disputes. In some areas,
the rate of land disputes was escalating so rapidly that the authorities had
stopped issuing land certificates.
Key dispute resolution and conflict management issues that create
opportunities for corruption include the following:
• Given the existence of multiple dispute resolution options, little sharing
of information, and opportunities for forum shopping, the formal
system is ineffective in resolving land disputes, and there is a high cost
in accessing appellate courts. This situation contributes to high case
loads and forces people to consider alternative means of dispute resolution
that may be less transparent and less equitable—or even to seek
corrupt means of obtaining favorable judgments.
Monitoring and Evaluation
In rural areas, the register (other than in pilot areas) is usually recorded
on a holding basis that limits the ability to search the register by parcel.
Under normal circumstances, only the holder or the holder’s legal representative
can access records in urban areas. Commercial banks have access
to the registers. Public records are routinely considered confidential personal
records by the service providers. In rural areas, although the records
system is relatively simple, poor records management systems can seriously
delay accessing information.
In Addis Ababa, one can access some records (notably, authenticated
copies of title deeds and transfer contracts) within one week. There are,
however, difficulties in locating the relevant information in different
institutions, and records are available only in manual format. This
means that the process of accessing information is typically difficult
and time-consuming, particularly with the high turnover of staff in
many municipalities and towns.