JUNE 2021

Community Conversation

Theme: Weak Justice System 

Topic on discussion: Judges got insufficient salary and have no reliable security

The State has limited resources to cover public services and less funding for judiciary system is part of general inadequacy of fund for the State; therefore due to limited financial resources the State cannot effort to pay sufficient salary for Judges. In addition most of the citizens are not paying tax to support State’s tax collection efforts and Ministry of Finance of the State not strong enough resource mobilization mechanism to pay judges sufficient salary. Also judges are not complaining about less pay instead they prefer to collect money from public (bribes). 

The State is responsible to ensure the security of the judges and not providing security guard to judges, and if they would make their own security guards they do not have sufficient salary to cover their security. Besides judges not rely on government security personnel because they had recruited clan based recruitment so they favor clannish, and judges fear that someday they may be against them due to judges’ court decision on cases related relatives or clan from the security guard. 

Judges work on clan favor they incline to support people they share the same sub-clan. Judges take bribes because plaintiff or defendant pays bribes to the judge so the community is part of the judge’s injustice; they support injustice to bribe the judge and the judge has weak faith therefore he takes unfair decision.    

Somali conflict caused community trust to be dismantled and there were little trust among community which disrupted lack of law and order; the situation reached the strong survives so it takes time communities trust each other and trust among community. Even the community practices marginalization, belittle, human rights violation, so judges came from such community cannot be straight or fair because of the physical environment operate.

Accountability gone or lost after the collapse of the central government so lack of law and order caused everything fell down including justice system; currently justice system is recovering and accountability is weak because of long time without law and order or government and formal justice system. 

The Ministry of Justice fell behind to put pressure on justice actors to carry out their responsibilities appropriately also there is no Judiciary Service Commission to follow up judiciary system and if it exists not fully functioning or not playing its role to follow up the law enforcement of court decisions. On the other side clan power influence judiciary system due to weak governance system or clan based governance; judges transfer complex cases to clan elders for fear of the law enforcement of court decisions. If the State uses its power of governance the law enforcement should be in place, but there is no power to practice formal justice system and powerful clan elders have influence in the judiciary.