Ethiopia Legal Frame Work Regarding Compensation for Wrongful Conviction

Abstract

Due to the fallibility of criminal justice system a lot of individuals are being wrongful convicted throughout the world. For instance wrong full convictions occur in1 to5 percent of all conviction in USA.[1] No criminal justice system can avoid wrongful conviction.  Wrongful convictions have a terrible and irreparable impact on the innocent defendant or on his family. However it would be worse, if the victim of wrongful conviction is not compensated. Countries give compensation to make the damage good. However cannot give back what the victim has lost due to wrongful conviction or cannot restore the victim to the previous position perfectly.In Ethiopia compensation for wrongful convictions is a legal issue which has yet to find a solution for those who the government has denied to pay compensation for the damage such wrongful conviction brought to their lives. Ethiopia has signed an international convention in favor of paying compensation to the persons who have been wrongfully convicted. However the federal and the regional state legislatures have not implemented efficient statutory provisions to comply with such commitment. In the absence of a statute how the government should respond to this situation of granting compensation to the wrongly convicted person.? Since there is no certainty in how our legal system would respond to the issue of compensating victim of wrongful conviction. It is important to  explores the available  alternatives in order to find a legal mechanism that gives justice to the victims of legal system.  To this end the writer discusses the meaning, causes and impact of wrongful conviction, and analyze the legal frame work  of compensation for wrongful conviction in Ethiopia and forward the proposed solution.

Keywords: wrongful conviction, miscarriage of justice, compensation, exoneration.

[1] BRITTNAY LEA-ANDRA MORGAN9( 2014): WRONGFUL CONVICTIONS: REASONS, REMEDIES, AND CASE STUDIES  PP2.