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’Corruption in Isles judiciary still rampant’
2006-01-03 08:32:40
By Issa Yussuf, Zanzibar
The Zanzibar Director of Public Prosecutor (DPP), Othman Masoud, said on Monday that corruption was still rampant in the Isles judiciary system as he called upon the media to help in the war against dishonesty.
”We have made some developments in the judiciary system, mainly after the introduction of the DPP office in 2002, but corruption still existed in the judiciary.
We need to work together to wipe it out,’ Masoud said at the three-day training seminar for journalists on’Reporting Criminal Justice’ being held at Bwawani Hotel.
He said journalists could play a big role in fighting corruption, mainly by investigating and reporting the evil deed that tarnishes the judiciary.
He added:’There are cases, sometimes with open evidence, but you cannot find it reported in the media. The media is silent on corruption — this does not help in fighting the cancer, let us work together.’
The DPP noted that although his office had made progress in improving the handling of criminal cases, more effort is still required including journalists having knowledge on judiciary matters.
Said he:’It may take time to solve many problems within the judiciary system, but at least we have made some progress including reducing time for court cases delay.
Sometimes a case would take up to 38 months before it would be ready for prosecution, but now we have reduced the period to three months.’
He said his office was working well with the police in solving the problems of case delay as well as training magistrates and prosecutors to speed up cases.
The DPP also informed seminar participants that his office was striving to see that new laws, such as those fighting money laundering introduced, and a penal code policy be in place as soon as possible in order to improve the judiciary system in Zanzibar.
The seminar, funded by UNDP aims at training journalists about the judiciary in Zanzibar.
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