Bu’a Qabeessummaa Rifoormiiwwan Manneen Murtii Oromiyaa: Kallattii Si’oomina Abbaa Seerummaan Yoo Madaalamu

Abstract

As part of justice reform program, Oromian judiciary has implemented various reform programs which are all designed for ensuring judicial efficiency, accessibility, and independence and accountability. But, there is no comprehensive research that evaluates the effectiveness of these reform programs from these perspectives. This article aims to evaluate the effectiveness of the reform programs from the perspective of judicial efficiency based on universally accepted principles and standards like clearance rate, time to disposition in years, and congestion rate. Accordingly, the article concludes that although the implementation of the reform programs are highly effective in ensuring judicial efficiency in general terms, comparatively, appellate courts are less efficient than trial courts. The reason for this, inter alia, is the increase of the number of appealed cases from Woredas to high courts,and from high courts to Supreme court. Hence, it is good to take a strategic measure like increasing quality judgement of the lower courts that tackles the number of appeal cases to appellate courts.