South Sudan uses tribal chiefs to clear jails
August 23, 2007 (JUBA, Sudan) — South Sudan will empower tribal chiefs to judge thousands of untried prisoners filling the semi-autonomous region’s overcrowded jails in the absence of new laws, a southern official said.
“We have decided that special courts be set up in every state manned by chiefs,” Chief Justice John Wuol Makek told Reuters late on Wednesday. “Within six months all these remand cases should be cleared,” he added.
He said there were thousands of prisoners sitting in jails across the region, some for 5 to 10 years. The chiefs would use tribal law to deal with lower-level crimes.
South Sudan has suffered decades of civil war since 1955 with only a short respite. Makek said this created a violent mentality in the south. Many of those jailed were involved in intertribal killings.
Since a January 2005 peace deal, Makek said numbers of prisoners had grown because of a lack of manpower in the courts system and confusion over what legislation to use.
The U.N. rapporteur for human rights in Sudan, Sima Samar, in her last visit criticised southern prisons as overcrowded and sub-standard, with children incarcerated with adults.
Under the peace deal, the mainly Christian and animist south formed its own legal system to distinguish itself from the Muslim north which uses laws based on Islamic sharia.
But Makek said parliament had been too slow to pass laws — only four have made it through and are not yet enacted — leaving judges in a quandary over what laws to use.
Judges in formerly rebel-controlled areas used basic laws created by the insurgents, while those in previously northern-controlled garrison towns in the south reverted to national laws based on sharia.
“Faced with lack of directive as to what laws to apply there was a dilemma, there was confusion,” Makek said.
Until new laws are ready, all post-peace crimes will be dealt with using the laws created by rebels during the war, called “New Sudan laws”, although they were far from comprehensive.
Gaps will be filled using principles of justice, equity, good conscience and English Common Law, Makek said.
(Reuters)