Hybrid court: The commencement of non-selective rule of law in South Sudan
By Kon Joseph Leek, Juba, South Sudan
June 13, 2016 (SSB) —- There is nothing basically wrong with South Sudan, whether its soil, climate, air or its people. The trouble merely reclines in the hands of its citizens’ deliberate ignorance to knowing their rights. Late Isaiah Abrahams once said in one of his articles that the government is much lucky to deal with the citizens who do not know their rights.
Another dreadful problem is the unwillingness or the inability of its leaders to rise to their responsibilities. Government’s self appeasement approach of blocking the citizens’ interests for their interests is also another problem.
Our problem is the sailing away of the State from being a possession of the people [citizens] to simply being a possession of its leaders. Citizens are not being given a right to choose which policies they should be governed. The leaders, for too long now are sluicing policies to what only benefits them.
For over ten years now, the three pillars that makes up the government [i.e. the legislature, judiciary and the cabinet] have been working so intertwined that the legislature is behaving and acting more of a baby to the cabinet rather than standing on its own. It should stop kneeling and praising whatever comes from there
Many solutions have been whimsically made to benefit the political interest of the regime rather than the interest of the inhabitants. Citizens have been for long blackmailed for having some of their interests formulated without consulting their consciousness and later claimed by the formulators that, “it has been the peoples’ demand” [the case of 28 states and East African Community]. They may be good but can you give the citizens the chance to decide either through referendum or legislature because legislature is the only institution that represents the people from all their constituents countywide?
All these self aggrandizement policies and conclusions that are made to simply give your selves credits are no longer welcomed and must be rejected by the concerned citizens
The government brutality on the journalists, gross corruption, incompetence, imposed terror through security apparatus, and other forms of ruthlessness are some of the things that we have carried on our necks and the government seemed not to care and for this, they should stop or we stop them if they don’t. In short, ruthlessness in all its form seems to be the only qualification for South Sudan’s leaders!
The government [TGoNU] we have now is the former government we had prior to 2013 that caused the civil war, economic depression due to Western suctions. So, it is the same whatever way you see it!
Our aspirations as South Sudanese are prosperity, rule of law, security and so on and so forth, and for this, I am calling the thoughtful Junubin to rise up today and reject those habits which cripple our aspirations and hamper our possibility of becoming a modern and attractive country. South Sudan has so many men and women of conscience; they should not allow their leaders’ naughty behaviors to dig holes!
Hybrid court just like Rwanda’s International Criminal Tribunal [ICTR] set up in 1995 in the Tanzania’s capital of Arusha to try genocide cases is just a fact finding institution to seek justice for the victims. Hybrid court is a Compromise Peace Agreement’s provision to try those ones who committed atrocities during the two year civil war that erupted in 2013.
On the letter dated 7th of June 2016, the two leaders [the president Salva Kiir and FVP Dr. Riek] wrote under the title; South Sudan Needs Truth, Not Trial that they wanted Hybrid Court smashed off and would want to move ahead with the peace and reconciliation which they wanted to be supported by the international community. Though Dr. Riek claimed that he is not aware of the letter that was addressed to the international community especially USA and British and was first posted on New York Times, press secretary in the office of the president, Ateny Wek still pins him [Riek] down that he was aware
There is nothing basically wrong with the searching for justice to those ones wronged during the war. It happened before in Kenya during post 2008 post election violence and in Rwanda to simply find justice. So, it is a normal phenomenon
What makes it [Hybrid Court] important now is that, it will show us the gate of trials of the law breakers and will make the law breakers respect the laws, it will also aware the unaware tritons among the minnows that laws and human rights are respected or else you get persecuted if you are not, they [the tritons] will know that laws are not made at their mercy only to try the minnows. The case of South Sudan is different from others, we are uncivilized, illiterate and warlords who are still carrying rebellious mindset and again not having laws swindled to be respected by the same. We [especially the tritons] break them at whims and are never tried. We are instead pardoned under amnesty, amnesty for the killers of civilians always!
Kenya is now a law abiding country and that was fastened and made to work by the ICC during post-election violence, they now know that, laws or justice comes to all. If Hybrid court is not made to work as per the interest of the two, then lack of respect of laws, as it use to be in their previous reign will still prevail. Unless we are shown how laws are respected, how justice comes to all, how laws are applied will make us stand on our own later after the Hybrid court. America [USA] and the British should have to listen to what the civilians says, may be through the REFRENDUM other than listening to that dispatch
Many laws and constitutional rights have been broken before not by the citizens but by their formulators. It is good to start the respect of laws with those [formulators] who acts against it. If Uhuru and Ruto were tried in The Hague then what is primarily wrong with Juba?
Obedience in any legal system – whether it is international or domestic, primitive or sophiscated – is based on the mixed of voluntary compliance and coercion [Rourke 1995: 113]. Voluntary compliance occurs when the subjects obey the law because they accept its legitimacy, this means that people abide by the rules because they accept the authority of the institution that made the rules [say, legislature or court] and agree that the rules are necessary to the reasonable conduct of society, and when it is the state authority that breaks the laws or rules they formulated then what do you expect from the subjects?
In conclusion; the state is the subject of international law. In that, international law applies to the state conduct and the great deal of international law addresses the status of states. Thus making the state the object of international law [states and the conducts of law and morality, J.T Rourke; 1993]. So, the international law dictates the appalling behaviors and activities of the state authority against its subjects, so let the Hybrid court reign
The author is a commentator on contemporary issues, he can be reached on j.konleek@gmail.com
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