Elucidating Some Legal Insufficiency Of Prosecutors and Police Liaison For Criminal Investigation In Ethiopia: The Case Of Oromia Regional State

Abstract

22 July 1991 to 21 August 1995, and 21 August 1995 to present by Transitional Charter and Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia (FDRE) constitution respectively, Ethiopia adopted federal system and structured the regions along ethnic lines. And Oromia Regional State (ORS) is the most populous and the largest region in Ethiopia. Until 2007, the relationship between prosecutors and police as well as prosecutors’ and police’s institutions over criminal investigation in Ethiopia and in all its regional states has been mainly governed by Ethiopian criminal procedure code of 1961 (CPC of 1961) for more than four decades. This code and some piecemeal legislations had empowered police to investigate the commission of crimes independently and pass over the report to the prosecutors, while prosecutors were empowered, on receiving the report, either to instruct for re-investigation, close or institute charge against the suspect(s). However, ensuing the Ethiopian justice system reform baseline study that had conducted from 2003 – 2005, implementing the studied reform and/or overhaul the noticed gaps using Business Process Reengineering (BPR) as an instrument was started in 2007, particularly in ORS. As per this BPR, prosecutors and police had been adjusted to carryout criminal investigation together in team. To legalize BPR, at ORS level, proclamation No. 132 of 2007 was issued by Caffee (parliament) Oromia. Though this proclamation was repealed, those proclamations enacted after it, to govern the issue under consideration, follow similar approach – make criminal investigation the responsibility of prosecutors and police team. Now, it is proclamation No.213 of 2018, proclamation No.214 of 2018 and CPC of 1961 that are serving as adhesive for police and prosecutors to carryout criminal investigation together in team in ORS. Nonetheless, from its inception to today, criminal investigation team of prosecutors and police in ORS is full of tension. This tension affected and is affecting the administration of criminal justice system in ORS. This writer argues legal insufficiency is a primary reason for the tension in the prosecutors and the police liaison for criminal investigation. Yet, the insufficiency discourse of these laws should have gotten attention but lacked it. Though scanty, this essay purports to get out the insufficiency of laws that are governing prosecutors and police liaison for criminal investigation in the ORS, and try to recommend measures to be taken to avoid and smooth the relationship between police and prosecutors in the region.