The 10 investigators (including 1 women) conducted 561 investigations, including 51 investigations into GBV. They transferred 362 cases to the OAG.
The OAG received 400 cases from police (so are broadly consistent) and laid 400 charges at courts (including 7 GBV cases and against 30 juveniles).
In the courts the combined new criminal cases for RHC and RFIC grow to around 1000 and the Zonal Courts register 24 GBV cases (no data for Woreda Courts re GBV cases). The trail goes silent as concerns the 30 juveniles (though picked up again in the prisons below).
Most of the new cases into the RHC and RFIC are disposed of in the same year with 90% disposal rate in the RFIC and 93% in the RHC.
The 4 new cases into the Office of the Public Defender provide the only record of legal aid services. There are 0 NGOs operating in Gambela and while the ULC operated in Gambela Town, Abol, Itang and Gog over two months in 2020, funding ceased and with it the ULC’s services.
The 4 prisons are just over half full mainly of unsentenced (remand) prisoners (75%), including few women and significant numbers of young men under 18. There are significant data mismatches as concerns both total women and total under 18 numbers. Whether there are 8 women (provided for in the total by prisons), or 25 combining sentenced and unsentenced populations (again from data provided) remains unclear. The point is there are very few.
As concerns boys under 18, the total recorded equals 100 while the number unsentenced is given as 310. The point is that the population of boys is significant and they are not separated from adult prisoners.
Of the sentenced population, over 50% are serving less than 3 years (putting them in the category of crime towards the lower end of the scale). The prison administration in interview offered the view that around 10% of their prisoners posed a threat to society and 15% had some form of mental illness. The Annual report states that ‘it was planned to identify mentally ill patients’ and provide them with ‘counseling and treatment’.
OAG
Police record 362 investigation files sent to OAG.
The OAG records report 0 pending cases at the end of the year. There appears to be a Data Mismatch as the number recorded as disposed is 285.
COURTS
Supreme Court cases carried forward Data mismatch: From the foregoing there should be 109 cases carried forward. Most of the case data are sourced from the Annual Report 2013 and the mismatches are replicated therein.
High Court cases carried forward Data anomaly: Data Mismatch. On enquiry, researchers were informed this was the figure given. It may be the reason lies in the number of cases pending from the previous year which was unknown.
PRISONS
Data mismatch: the total adult women (8) does not match the 17 on remand + 8 who are sentenced (total 25)
Data mismatch: the total girls (2) does not match the number on remand (1) + number who are sentenced (2).
Data mismatch: total of 310 boys aged 15-18 on remand does not match with the total boys aged 15-18: 100 – nor does it match with the total prisoners on remand (469) made up of 452 adult men and 17 adult women.
Data mismatch: total serving less than 3 years does not match when the 15 boys below are included.