Africa-Press – South-Sudan. The legal system in South Sudan is often lauded as a regional model for its rigorous checks and balances, particularly the scrutiny applied by public attorneys to ensure justice is served for the following reasons. However, recent events involving Ambassador David Amuor Majur and Advocate Josephine Adhet Deng raise serious questions about whether these foundational principles were applied.
Scrutiny of the Merits of Legal Proceedings: The commencement of criminal proceedings is among the key functions of the office of the public attorneys, who are mandated to hear complaints at first instance before such complaints are referred for preliminary investigations. In South Sudan, therefore, criminal proceedings can only proceed to court based on merits. In other countries in the region, however, such a scrutiny does not exist. In fact, criminal proceedings are commenced before the police at the police stations without being scrutinized by a qualified legal person to verify and determine the merit of the complaint.
Public Attorneys are the Gatekeepers of Arrest Warrants: In South Sudan, public attorneys are obligated not only to verify and scrutinize the merits of every complaint to determine if further investigations are warranted, but they are also mandated to control the arbitrary issuance of warrants of arrest. This ensures that the privilege to issue arrest warrants is not abused. In this way, the gatekeeping powers of the public attorneys promote public confidence in the administration of justice.
Requirement for Judicial Authorization of Arrest Warrants: Attorneys are also mandated to prevent arrests without judicial issuance of a warrant by courts of competent jurisdiction, which empower supervising police officers at various police cells to execute such arrests. In this way, arrest warrants are only executed after being properly analyzed and scrutinised to determine the authorizing judicial officers who can only make such authorization upon the determination of the merits of the complaints based on the evidence presented to ensure that the case satisfies the standards provided for under the Penal Code Act.
The Case Between Advocate Josephine Adhet Deng and Ambassador David Amuor Majur
Against the foregoing, it is important to determine the veracity of the saga involving Amb. David Amuor Majur, the Presidential Press Secretary, and Advocate Josephine Adhet Deng, who is an Advocate. The whole saga started as an online telephone debate between Advocate Josephine and Amb. Majur. Advocate Adhet overtly accused Amb. Majur of criminal wrongdoing involving intimidation, defamation and sexual assault. Following the contentious ending of this debate, Advocate Adhet proceeded to issue an arrest warrant against Amb. Majur and the executing police authorities were obligated to execute the warrant.
This was surprising, firstly because Amb. Majur enjoys diplomatic privilege and immunity, which protects him from being arrested unless such immunity has been lifted by a court of competent jurisdiction. Secondly, the office of the Public Prosecutor is obligated to establish the relevant facts behind the case before an arrest warrant is executed. Instead, a rush to execute such a warrant without scrutiny and before hearing from the side of the accused was excused. Only in limited exigent circumstances may such a warrant be executed. The case against Amb. Majur does not appear to be one of those limited exigent circumstances. Those authorized to execute such a warrant did not take practical steps to establish enough evidence about the case against Amb. Majur to enable the Public Prosecutor to make the right decision in these circumstances.
This is why the genesis of this case must be adjudged from a different perspective. In my view, the underlying motive in this case appears to be the position occupied by Amb. Majur not because there is criminal wrongdoing by Amb. Majur.
In most cases in South Sudan, the accused is usually forced to get rid of the case against him or her by paying a bribe to their accuser. This is often done to protect oneself from unnecessary prosecution. The more noise an accuser makes in the media, the more the accused is seen to be guilty in the court of public prosecution, even though under the court of law, the accused is presumed innocent until proven otherwise. This does not suggest that Advocate Adhet is doing this to receive a bribe. Far from it, I am making a general observation which does not apply to Advocate Adhet.
Thirdly, the office of the Public Prosecution in South Sudan is expected to provide equal justice to all parties regardless of one’s occupation. This does not appear to have been accorded to Amb. Majur. This begs the question of whether Advocate Adhet is using her influence with the public attorney in the office of the Public Prosecutor to bulldoze injustice against Amb. Majur.
The Case in Question in Perspective
The complainant, Advocate Josephine Adhet Deng, is a well-known shyster in town. She works together with an invisible team in the office of the Public Prosecutor. Sometimes the nature of their work is based on capitalization of irrelevant issues that warrant no prosecution. The continuation of such irrelevant issues clearly serves to erode public confidence in the administration of justice and bring the administration of criminal justice into terrible disrepute. The benefits she gets in creating these problems are better known to her and the team of prosecutors who work in concert with her to issue warrants of arrest for people she accuses, often trivially.
Three good examples of Advocate Josephine’s cases designed to target important people include but are not limited to:
The Case at Hand: The case between Advocate Adhet and Amb. Amuor Majur clearly started as an argument between the two over the telephone conversations. According to the recorded audio, she was the one who started to provoke Amb. Majur by attacking him through telephone conversations.
She also went ahead without consent from Amb. Majur, to record the phone conversations. This recording is against the law. It appears that this process with deliberately planned to trap Amb. Majur. Unfortunately, the shyster went ahead to file the case against Amb. Majur. Sadly and surprisingly, the Prosecutor issued the warrant of arrest without further scrutiny or investigation.
Between Professor Jok Madut Jok and Advocate Adhet: Another example involving Advocate Adhet’s frivolous accusation involved Professor Jok Madut a few years ago. It started when Advocate Adhet lodged a case against the relative of Dr. Jok, whom she accused of having impregnated her stepdaughter. Consequently, the accused young man was arrested and released on bail by Dr. Jok.
As a result, Advocate Adhet went ahead to file a case against Dr. Jok when she went to the Prosecutor to issue a warrant of arrest against Dr. Jok, claiming that Dr. Jok’s right to bail out the accused young man was a criminal wrongdoing, even though the law provides such a right to the accused. To effect her legal suit, she ambushed Dr. Jok at Juba International Airport on the day he was scheduled to travel to the United States of America.
The police humiliated Professor Jok by removing him from the plane and putting him in jail. Dr. Jok Madut Jok is Professor and Director of Graduate Studies, Anthropology Department at Syracuse University, Maxwell School of Citizenship & Public Affairs. In this saga, Dr. Jok did not do anything wrong. He was only a victim of his high-level position.
Akuol Zakaria and Advocate Adhet: The third involved a frivolous suit by Advocate Adhet occurred between her and a popular artist called Akuol Zackaria, aka Lady Kola. Lady Kola was arrested by the same Advocate on account of a preposterous claim that the artist composed a song titled “Little Girls” that promotes immorality. Again, Lady Kola became the victim of Adhet’s groundless lawsuit because of her popularity, especially among young women artists in South Sudan.
In all these baseless legal issues, one can see that the advocate in question appears to be using her influence within the office of the public attorney to go after innocent people. This appears to be both a misuse and an abuse of public prosecution authority.
In conclusion
This article appeals to the Prosecutor General to, first, strengthen South Sudan’s legal system by reviewing the work of public Attorneys under him. Secondly, the Prosecutor General should ensure that those working under him are recruited based on a strong commitment to justice and public interest.
The case against Amb. Majur neither serves to render justice nor promote public interest. While I am of the strong opinion that this case will be dismissed by the competent court of law, it is an eye-opener that the public office is being used for a wrongful purpose and Amb.
Majur is entitled to sue both Advocate Adhet and the Office of the Prosecutor for wrongful use of public office and resources in pursuit of a personal vendetta. It is time for this office to implement policies on integrity and honor befitting the Office of the Public Prosecutor.
The Author: Tong Deng Anei is a former State Minister of Health for the government of Northern Bahr el Ghazal State, South Sudan. He is a Food Security specialist. Anei previously worked for the United States Agency for International Development, the United Nations and the government, helping to provide policy direction and implement humanitarian assistance programs. Reach him at [email protected]
Source: Eye Radio
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