Several residents of Northern Bahr El Ghazal State have expressed growing disappointment over delays in hearing their court cases and their quest for justice at the county level.
Aweil East County resident Joseph Angok Mayath castigated the County Judge for delays in the judicial process and said it means remedies come too late. He added that people who travel from far-flung areas to hear their cases spend a lot of money on transport, hoping for a timely ruling, only for their cases to be adjourned.
“I want to inform the government that delays continue in courts, most of the people will lose interest in following up their cases, and we will deal with those who have offended us accordingly,” he warned. “We will take the law into our hands because the court has not made timely rulings based on the needs of the people.”
“The judiciary in Northern Bahr el Ghazal needs to be reformed to make sure the cases are handled promptly and there is access to justice,” Mayath added. Another resident of Aweil East County, Ngor Deng Matem, also voiced the same sentiments about the county judge’s poor handling of proceedings. He highlighted a case where he took a thief who stole his bricks to court, but the judge kept adjourning the matter for three months.
“In the court, instead of the judge proceeding with the case, he adjourned it seventeen times,” he lamented. “He keeps postponing the court cases and telling people to return tomorrow, next week, or next month. My case has been postponed from March until now.”
To address the backlog of court cases and ease access to justice, Deng suggests the recruitment of more judges to serve at the county and state levels.
“There are people who have cases in court that have been running for two years. Someone comes from far away to attend a court case at Wanyjok Headquarters of Aweil East County, and in the evening, they are told the case has been adjourned to another day,” he explained.
For his part, Mawien Aher Arol, a resident in Aweil North County, noted that the entire county lacks a judge and that residents have to travel from Aweil North to Aweil West County to have their cases heard, which leads to delays. He said this can mean justice denied and force people to take the law into their own hands.
“I am calling on the government to establish a court in Aweil North to stop the suffering of the people,” he said. “And secondly, there is a river between the two counties, and there are no bridges, so during the rainy season, people have difficulty crossing to go and access justice.”
Meanwhile, Angelo Bak Mawien, a resident of Aweil South County, disclosed that people frequently travel to Aweil Town to file and attend court cases due to a lack of a judge in the county. He said most of the local issues referred to court in Aweil South County include cattle theft and minor crimes.
“Some people cannot afford a motorcycle taxi (bodaboda) or a bus fare to go to Aweil Town to follow up on their cases, and later on, they might lose the court case because of not attending hearings. These are the challenges we face due to the lack of a judge in our county,” he said. “The government needs to intervene by establishing the county court so that local people from the payam level can access justice within the county.”
In response, the senior legal counselor in the Northern Bahr el Ghazal State High Court, Deng Majak, acknowledged that there are not enough judges to handle cases across the state.
“Indeed, we do not have judges operating in some counties, but when there are some cases in an area, we send a prosecutor there to represent us, and the same applies to judges too,” he disclosed. “If there are cases in Aweil South and Aweil Center counties, we handle them from here in Aweil Town. The problem is that we do not have enough judges, but we struggle to finish the cases in time, and there is no delay.”
However, Ter Manyang Gatwech, a civil society activist who heads the Center for Peace and Advocacy (CPA), weighed in on the issues, arguing that access to justice is a fundamental right of citizens.
“The government must ensure justice is served, and they do not need to give unnecessary accusations without moral justification,” he said. “You see, if other counties have trials on time, and others do not, this is not acceptable.”