The police had 198 investigations pending from the previous year and another 80,669 complaints were received during the year. This led to 40,611 investigations being carried out of which 40,582 were forwarded to the OAG.
The data reported in the Annual Report were collected at a different time and are different but not significantly. They show:
This shows a conviction rate of 75% or acquittal rate of <2%.
The police received 2153 reports of GBV and investigated 1631 of them. It is not clear how a total of 2,349 GBV cases were then subsequently forwarded to the OAG. The data suggest that 2,796 juveniles were arrested during the year.
The Police Annual Report 2013 report 2119 GBV complaints of which 733 were investigated and 1044 compromised (or settled). The data further reveal that of the 733 forwarded, 40 ended in conviction, 251 in acquittal (the balance were pending). The AR also captured sexual offences against children and showed 455 cases in 2013, 366 investigated with 271 convictions, 6 acquittals and 0 settled or compromised.
The OAG had 36,054 investigations pending from the previous year and initiated 104,216 new investigations during the year. These investigations led to charges being framed in 49,580 cases. Out of that number 3,747 cases were GBV cases. In 3,220 of those GBV cases the accused person was convicted, indicating a relatively high conviction rate (86%) for GBV cases.
OAG data suggest that convictions were handed down in 49,529 cases, although the data on disposals are inconsistent (see data notes in baseline data). There are no data on how many, if any, juveniles were charged, but OAG data suggest that 1,015 persons under the age of 18 were convicted.
There were 111,607 new criminal cases filed in the RFIC and 19,188 in the RHC. As in many other regions, these numbers are considerably higher than the number of cases in which the OAG is reported to have framed charges. The disposal rate greatly exceeded 100% which suggests that, despite there being no data on it, there must have been cases pending at the beginning of the year.
With 419,240 civil cases filed in the regular courts and another 10,035 cases in the Sharia courts, the civil caseload significantly outweighed the criminal caseload. Disposal rates in both regular and Sharia courts were well above 100% but without accurate data on cases pending at the beginning of the year it is impossible to calculate the backlog.
There were 200 Public Defenders working in Oromia, but there is no case management data from them.
EWLA has an office in Adama and they arrange voluntary legal aid committees outside of Adama too. They received 2,654 new cases and were able to dispose of 1,987 cases, mainly through litigation and also through mediation and negotiation. The 87 University Legal Clinics handled 4,513 cases in total, representing close to 2000 clients in court (most of whom were women) and settling the remainder of cases through mediation and negotiation.
There is no established figure for the holding capacity of prisons in Oromia. This is problematic because without knowing how many people a given prison can safely and humanely accommodate, it is impossible to know when it should be considered fully occupied or even overcrowded.
At the time of the visit in September 2021, the Oromia prisons held 41,884 people (including 1699 women and 12 girls – 4% of the population and 1095 boys – 2.6%). The remand rate, at under 7%, was much below that of other regions. More than half of the sentenced prisoners were sentenced to terms of less than 3 years, which, as in many other regions, points to an opportunity for non-custodial and alternative sentencing.
POLICE
During the data cleaning, in response to queries raised on case data, police provided a new set of case data. Significant changes were to the number of investigations conducted and sent to the PP.
Original data collected showed 1579 GBV cases forwarded to PP. This revised figure (2349) is hard to reconcile with the number of investigations conducted in the year (1631)
COURTS
331 cases ending in conviction in the RSC refer to cases tried under the court’s original jurisdiction.
The number of cases pending in the RSC was calculated (by the courts) by subtracting the cases disposed (23793) from the cases pending less than 4 years (27091). This produces an error in the accounting. The criminal cases pending at the beginning of the year (8411) + new criminal cases (7976) = 16,387. Less 7733 criminal cases disposed leaves pending total criminal cases: 8654
In the High and First Instance Courts (Zonal and Woreda Courts), the cases disposed may exceed those new coming in because there are no data for cases pending from the previous year.
OPD
Case data were incomplete. The case data changed significantly during cleaning and in answer to queries made. Four zones could not supply their data. Accordingly, the data are unreliable.
LASP
Data mismatch: cases pending end year do not correspond with previous figures (pending, new, disposed)
PRISONS
Prisons were not previously built to any ‘standard’. The new ones are. The capacity of the current prison stock is not known.
Data mismatch: the total remand (2873) + total sentenced prisoners (38044) = 40917 v 41884
ULCs
This data is consolidated data from all ULCs in Oromia. For data notes on the data of each ULC, please see the data notes in the baseline data where the data from each ULC is represented in a separate tab.
COURTS OF SHARIA
Data mismatches in all three courts for cases pending end year. The calculation is cases pending (previous year) + new cases minus cases disposed produces the following: SSC: 125, SHC: 68, SFIC: 2167.
SUPREME COURT
Data mismatch: cases pending is given as 2620. Calculated as pending + new – disposed totals: 19251.