ECSU Holds a Public Lecture On Transitional Justice
Ethiopian Civil Service University (ECSU) Research and Partnership Division and School of law in collaboration with the Public Diplomacy section of U.S. Embassy hold a Public lecture under the title "Navigating Truth, Accountability, and Reconciliation: Perspectives on Transitional Justice in Ethiopia" on May 25,2024 at ECSU .
At the opening of the program, Vice President for Research and Community Service, Dr Alemayehu Debebe, welcomed the participants and introduced the importance of transitional justice for leading democratic and harmonizes life, particularly with the context of Ethiopia. According to him setting a clear objective for the decision, listing the possible alternatives, placing weighing criteria and selecting the appropriate model for making the decision are the basic steps in decision making process.
Guest of the speaker, Professor Sirleaf Matiangai, briefed the participants on the history and current situation of Ethiopia concerning to the transitional justice quoting examples of some African countries. She outlined the main reason why she initiated to conduct this research on this topic is the traumatic history of Ethiopian on War and conflicts. As she indicated that taking lesson from the past and other instances should be important though a lot of challenges are there to undergo the process of transitional justice.
She mentioned the four pillars of transitional justice: Truth seeking, Justice or asserting the right to justice and rejecting impunity, Reparation or providing reparation for victims, and guarantees of non-repetition in the future. These processes had been tried on the era of different regime in Ethiopia.
Furthermore, the lecturer reviewed the five aspects of transitional justice and considered options to bring peace and justice to the future .Establishing truth commissions, applying reparation programs, making structural reforms, constructing Museums and Memories, and conducting effectively criminal prosecution are the main aspect of TJ . Professor Sirleaf Matiangai also gave brief information about the status of political violence and the role of education and academicians to bring sustainable peace and the role of transitional justice processes play in building sustainable peace and reconciliation. “Transitional justice is an effort to right the wrong that was done and is an idea of acceptance of responsibility for the committed crimes’’ she underlined.
The other speaker was Ms Kalkidan Dereje from Ministry of Justice and she thanked ECSU for inviting the Ministry of Justice to participate in the seminar. This is a good beginning for collaboration and further partnership with ECSU regarding to TJ. Ministry of Justice is the main facilitator for TJ policy implementation she underlined. She said that Higher Education Institutions have a critical vote and responsibility under the police and we look forward for further activities in the implementation process. She also explained the process of how Ethiopian TJ policy was developed.
The participants raised different questions and the presenters were respectively answered the questions. The public lecture was moderated by Asst. Prof. Teguada Albachew .
Professor Sirleaf Matiangai, Professor of Law at the University of Maryland, Francis King Carey School of Law. She holds a secondary appointment in the Department of Epidemiology and Public Health at the University Of Maryland School Of Medicine. Professor Sirleaf writes and teaches in the areas of global public health law, public international law, international human rights law, international criminal law, post-conflict and transitional justice, and criminal law. She is the editor of the first thematic print volume on Race and National Security, which is forthcoming with Oxford University Press in 2023.