Investigation Findings of Ethiopian Human Rights Commission Bahir Dar Branch Office And Enforcement of Its Recommendations.

Abstract

This thesis is targeted at evaluating investigations findings and recommendation enforcement practice of EHRC- Bahir Dar branch office thereby assessing the problems faced by the Branch office in its endeavor to ensure implementation of its recommendations. It has assessed the procedure investigation is guided and how investigation findings and recommendations are prepared and reported to the concerned bodies. It also tries to examine what enforcement mechanisms the branch office applied to enforce its recommendations, how much these tools are successful in making sure compliance with recommendations and to provide effective remedies for victims of human rights violations. In this thesis, to achieve this purpose qualitative research approach was employed and both primary and secondary data sources were used. The primary data include data from interviews, reviews of annual reports of the branch office and investigation files and recommendations and reports of the branch office submitted to the ANRS State council, Law and Administration Affaires Standing Committee of ANRS State Council and occasionally to the President of ANRS on recommendation enforcement challenges. It also include data from analysis of relevant provisions of establishing laws of EHRC,EIO, some NHRIs of other countries, Investigations and Mediation Directives of EHRC, FDRE Constitution, Paris principles and other relevant international, regional and national laws . The secondary data used in the study include reviews of relevant books, thesis and other documents on the internet which are related to the research problem. The thesis has finally found that despite its failure to exercise its formal enforcement power, the branch office has employed various non-confrontational enforcement tools to ensure implementation of its recommendations. These include reporting to the ANRS State council and concerned Standing committee, roundtable discussions, and field supervisions as well as warning letter. In fact, these enforcement tools are proved ineffective to ensure compliance with recommendations when the cooperation of respondents is missing. Consequently, majority of the recommendations were remained unexecuted. The major problem that encumber adequate implementation of recommendations were resistance by respondents on different grounds such as citing legal bases for their actions, failures of the branch office to exercise its legal enforcement power which is a direct result of its failure to fulfill the necessary requirement to use such power and legal gaps related to the Commission’s enforcement power are worthy of mentioning. As result of these conclusions, the thesis recommends that the branch office is expected to conduct exhaustive investigation and forward more convincing and strong recommendations by identifying the pertinent body liable for the violations; it should also begin the use of its formal enforcement power by satisfying necessary preconditions and in the meantime, it should urge the head office to make a proposal for the amendment of its establishing law to empower it and the branch offices to take appropriate legal action which directly targeted at enforcing their non-complied recommendations and ensuring appropriate remedies.