The majority of South Sudan’s Greater Equatoria population are not aware of the procedures required to seek justice, the Support Peace Initiative Development Organisation (SPIDO) found in a new study.
SPIDO, in the study titled Status of Access to Justice Report in Greater Equatoria Region – South Sudan, also found that the justice system is overburdened by case backlogs, insufficient numbers of judicial officers, a lack of legal representation, and corruption.
Findings also show overlapping of duties, poor welfare and irregularities in salary remunerations for rule of law officials and a lack of respect for the rule of law.
The organisation said it conducted the 2021 study using a mixed approach of both qualitative and quantitative methods, with information and data gathered through focus group discussions and informant interviews.
Lawyers, police, prison authorities, human rights civil society organisations (CSOs), students of law, journalists, religious leaders, women groups, youths, people living with disabilities, traditional authorities were also interviewed, according to the study.
SPIDO noted that 98 percent of the respondents said they had encountered challenges in obtaining access to justice institutions.
It also noted that since the country’s independence in 2011, almost 95 percent of South Sudanese have experienced at least one severe justice need that was difficult to resolve.
The report categorised the barriers to accessing justice in South Sudan into institutional barriers, intersectional barriers and societal and cultural barriers.
‘Statutory courts and lawyers are marginal to the experience of day-to-day justice of the people of Equatoria region of South Sudan; less than ten [percent] of dispute resolution takes place in court of law’, the study found.
‘The respondents in this study said that they saw cops as very corrupt because of bribes and illicit payments without receipts in exchange for services they provide.
‘The survey also notes that regular corruption in police system leads to improper delivery of services and compromised legal protection for the vulnerable and marginalised citizens’.
A similar study by Rens Willems and David Deng, titled Justice and Conflict in South Sudan Observations from a Pilot Survey, had found that when confronted with actual crimes, respondents were more likely to contact other dispute resolution mechanisms than the police.
The 2015 report also noted that the fact that South Sudanese relied on less formal mechanisms in practice suggested an unmet demand for formal justice services among populations in the country.
‘Lack of the independent oversight for police institution to monitor, investigate and discipline the errant police officers who are operating outside the laws as required has contributed to the injustices, said the majority of the respondents’, the SPIDO report also noted.
‘The gap between the law and practice, which is linked to the actual effort to claim and obtain remedy, is nevertheless a source of worry.
‘The completion of the legal framework has been hampered by institutional inefficiencies and a lack of respect for the rule of law, as seen by the arbitrary use of power to undermine citizens’ rights protected by the law’.
The report urged CSOs working in the area of access to justice to strengthen demand for government accountability in relation to adherence to the rule of law in South Sudan.
Also, the report called on legal aid CSOs in partnership with local government and donors to develop the capacity of traditional chiefs to undertake alternative dispute resolution (ADR) system professionally within their jurisdiction in the informal segment.
Furthermore, the report called for the passing of the national legal aid policy into law, and the increase of the spread and numbers of the community-based paralegals at all levels.
Photo source: Tyler Hicks/The New York Times
