Ejeta, Demmellash (2017) The Legal Regime on Recovery of Misappropriated Public Property in Ethiopia. Masters thesis, Addis Ababa University.
![[img]](http://thesisbank.jhia.ac.ke/style/images/fileicons/application_pdf.png) |
PDF (The Legal Regime on Recovery of Misappropriated Public Property in Ethiopia)
The Legal Regime on Revovery of Misappropriated Public Property in Ethiopia.pdf - Accepted Version Restricted to Repository staff only Download (1MB) | Request a copy |
Abstract
I have developed an interest over issues pertaining to recovery of misappropriated property ever since I took a job as a prosecutor. In my early first two years in the profession, I came to sense something unsound and unjust in the asset recovery realm which I later realized it to be the absence of a non-conviction based civil asset forfeiture laws. This fortunately became the central tenet of this research. Save the exceptions, normally asset recovery is a post-conviction based process that comes after the accused is convicted. Hence, for a criminal confiscation to take effect a case has to pass through the cumbersome criminal procedure. Even if such rigorous criminal procedure is just and quite from the point of view of protection of human liberty, it is not without downsides from the perspective of the misappropriated property. This is because, despite the presence of an evidence which implicate the commission of crime a suspect or an accused that has succeeded in casting doubt in the case can avoid prosecution or conviction and the attendant confiscation of the fruit of crime. Similarly, factors like death before investigation, prosecution and conviction, absence (unless trial in absentia is allowed) and immunity are barriers which prevent conviction and confiscation of the ill-gained property. To remedy these deficiencies, states have seriously expressed the need for a new approach to fight crime and recover proceeds of crime by adopting a new non-conviction based civil confiscation system. Civil confiscation is a hybrid asset forfeiture system that shares the characteristics of both civil and criminal law. This system particularly targets the embezzled property by using a lesser standard of evidence regardless of the conviction of the accused. As an actor in the international arena, the Ethiopia legal system has belatedly introduced civil forfeiture laws in piece meal in the Prevention and Suppression of Money Laundering and Financing Terrorism Proclamation No. 718/2013 and in the Revised Anti-Corruption Special Procedure and Rules of Evidence Proclamation No. 882/2015. The main objective of this Thesis is appraising these civil forfeiture laws and the practice on the ground by employing both doctrinal and non-doctrinal methods. Accordingly the research has found out that the recently introduced civil forfeiture laws fail to exploit hindsight advantage and still manifest limitations content and scope wise. Similarly due to dearth of awareness the civil forfeiture laws are almost neglected and the asset recovery is still fettered with the conviction based confiscation mentality. Another major finding is the vagueness and absence of a clear procedure law that befits the hybrid nature of civil forfeiture laws. Based on these findings, the Thesis has suggested the need for an amendment of the civil forfeiture law so as to mend its deficiencies, the enactment of a self-standing civil forfeiture law and a procedural law that can accommodate its peculiar features. The Thesis has also underscored the potential susceptibility of civil forfeiture law to abuse and the need to enforce it with the highest ethical standard.
| Item Type: | Thesis (Masters) |
|---|---|
| Subjects: | K Law > K Law (General) |
| Divisions: | Africana |
| Depositing User: | Kabiru Wallace Ndung'u |
| Date Deposited: | 04 Jul 2019 08:32 |
| Last Modified: | 04 Jul 2019 08:32 |
| URI: | http://thesisbank.jhia.ac.ke/id/eprint/9367 |
Actions (login required)
 |
View Item |