Legal Docket: International justice

JENNY ROUGH, HOST: It’s Monday the 25th of November. Glad to have you along for today’s edition of The World and Everything in It. Good morning. I’m Jenny Rough.

NICK EICHER, HOST: And I’m Nick Eicher. Time now for Legal Docket. Well, Jenny, as you know, one of the reasons we have this Legal Docket segment is to examine the United States justice system. It’s a really good system. Not perfect. But a system with core values that provides access to justice.

ROUGH: Right! Today, we’re going to home in on some of those core values and unpack what the phrase “access to justice” really means. Which seems fitting this Thanksgiving week.

EICHER: It is a time to be thankful for many things, including our Constitution and the fact that its rights extend to all. But sometimes the virtues of our system of justice are most visible when we see in places where they were never known. So on that note, we’ll step away from our standard Legal Docket fare for this special report.

ROUGH: Justice isn’t always putting the bad guy away. Sometimes it’s simply the unjustly accused being set free. And in Uganda, that’s not always so easy. But in recent years, Uganda has been making legal reforms to open up access to justice. And those reforms are now spreading across the continent of Africa.

LAURYN EASON: I think it was our second day in the prison.

That’s Lauryn Eason. Last spring, this American lawyer volunteered for a prison project in Uganda.Eason was paired up with an Ugandan law student. Together, they looked over a client’s file.

The client’s name was Rose. Eighteen months ago, when Eason learned of the case, Rose wasn’t so happy.

EASON: This woman, who was a maid, had been accused of stealing money and some clothes from her boss.

Now for a long time, in Uganda, if you were arrested for breaking the law, you sat in prison and awaited your trial date no matter the offense.No workable bail system. No Sixth Amendment right to a speedy trial. The wait could take up to five years.
Rose’s file was handwritten. Because there’s no electronic filing system either.

EASON: Sometimes you can’t even read the handwriting. So I said, “Okay, let’s call her over here.” And when she stood up, I thought, Oh, she looks really young!

It was an adult prison. But Rose had been sent there as a teenager. As they talked, Rose’s story didn’t match up with the written confession.

EASON: There’s no public defense here, so most people don’t ever have any sort of defense attorney.

Maybe she committed the crime, maybe not. Not much education. Limited English.

EASON: And so it's just, you can imagine how inaccessible justice can be.

Inaccessible justice. Eason and the Ugandan lawyer-in-training were trying to change that. That’s why they were there.

EASON: I just felt something was off, but I didn’t know what it was. And so, I truly believe this was the Holy Spirit, I just felt compelled to ask her: “How do you know your boss?”

Rose’s dad had died a year ago. Her family was poor. A neighbor told her he had a job for her in Kampala, five hours away from home. The neighbor said:

EASON: The boss was very strict, but the money would be good.

A red flag. Eason asked Rose how much money the boss had paid.

EASON: And she said, “Well, she paid me for like a week, and then she stopped paying me. And I was not allowed to have the money. I was not allowed to leave. I could not see my family.” And I’m like, Ah! She’s a victim!

A victim of domestic labor trafficking. Labor trafficking is the most common type of trafficking worldwide. It happens in the United States, too.

One way to fight it? Opening up access to justice. Thankfully, the principles of due process are spreading across not only Uganda, but the entire continent of Africa.

DANNY DEWALT: It’s been the privilege of my life to be a part of working in Africa.

This is Danny DeWalt. He’s the executive director of the Sudreau Global Justice Institute. It’s based out of my alma mater, Pepperdine law school.The Global Justice Institute works with African judiciaries on legal reforms.

DEWALT: This principle we have in America of you’re innocent until proven guilty—just because you’ve been accused of something doesn’t mean you’re automatically guilty. And yet that’s a prevalent sort of human instinct that if someone says something about you, the first instinct is there must be some truth to it, or it’s completely true, not you’re innocent until you’re proven guilty. So that takes work. That takes effort. And you have to build a system around those values.

Last month, chief justices and top judges from 14 African countries gathered at Pepperdine’s Switzerland campus to do just that. Nothing like this has happened before. And listening to them meet and exchange ideas, honestly, it felt like watching history in the making.

One item on the agenda? Solving a common problem: too many cases.

These countries have an enormous backlog of cases. More people are in prison awaiting trial than actual convicts serving time.

DEWALT: In prison without ever talking to a lawyer, without anybody telling them their rights, without ever knowing when you’re going to go to court.

Kenya’s Chief Justice Martha Koome says that because so many defendants are in pre-trial detention, it leads to another problem.

MARTHA KOOME: The prisons are overcrowded. Therefore, we need to do something about the congestion of prisons.

In Kenya, a prison built for 800 people may house as many as 1,400. In Uganda, some are at three times capacity. Here’s DeWalt again:

DEWALT: And so they’re sleeping like sardines in shifts of eight hours. And for 24 hours. You sleep, and then you’re up for 16 hours, and somebody else goes to sleep. It’s so overcrowded.

By the time the defendant’s case finally comes before the court, he or she may have already served his or her sentence—and then some. Justice has two sides. DeWalt says, ideally a defendant shouldn't be deprived of rights. But on the other hand, the guilty have to be punished.

DEWALT: A healthy justice system is going to have due process and it’s going to have, again, a fair shake for people who are accused of crimes, hold them accountable if the evidence shows they’re guilty, but not falsely imprison them or unduly imprison them if they’re not.

DeWalt’s idea of justice is grounded in God’s revelation.

DEWALT: So we know that it’s His design and His heart that every one of the people that He has created and made in his image, He wants them to flourish. We see that where justice is missing, people are going to suffer. And that justice is what helps people flourish in life.

To address the legal backlog, many African countries are introducing the concept of plea bargaining: the negotiation between a defense lawyer and a prosecutor that leads to agreement on an appropriate sentence for the crime. Then, a proposal to the judge for approval.

At first, that caused concern. Here’s Chief Justice Alfonse Owiny-Dollo of Uganda

ALFONSE OWINY-DOLLO: When plea-bargaining was introduced … there were many questions. People would doubt. People would say, “How can you negotiate punishment?”

But plea bargaining doesn’t necessarily mean being let off easy. It brings justice swiftly and efficiently. DeWalt again:

DEWALT: And not waste all the resources of time and money to go to trial when they’re just going to plead guilty and admit that they did it.

With the prison projects, Ugandan judges, along with Ugandan and American lawyers travel to the prisons by bus. They set up tables in the courtyard: one for the prosecution, one for the defense lawyers, and one for the judges. Negotiations began. And all sides work hard to make sure the sentence is fair.Chief Justice Owiny-Dollo said it’s a monumental success.

OWINY-DOLLO: In five years, 35,000 cases were resolved. 35,000 cases.

And the idea is spreading in the most American of ways.True story: Chief Justice Faustin Ntezelyayo of Rwanda learned about Uganda’s legal reforms … on social media!

FAUSTIN NTEZILYAYO: I like social media

One day he was browsing the Judiciary of Uganda’s page.

NTEZILYAYO: I found out they were conducting a program of plea bargaining in one prison of Uganda, and then Pepperdine University was the one that was helping the Judiciary of Uganda to do so.

So they set up a prison project in Rwanda.

NTEZILYAYO: Amazingly, up to now, you know, two years of the program running, 15,000 people are out of the prison because they have finished their sentences. I can see that it is a good, a very positive, outcome from this program.

But challenges remain: a shortage of judges, for one thing. Kenya, for example, has opened new courts all over the country, but now needs to fill the vacancies. Here’s Chief Justice Koome:

KOOM: Judges are retiring. They get old. I have 18 adjudicators working in 40 locations. So that requires a lot of energy to solve cases.

Another challenge: Defendants are clamoring to get in line for these prison projects, even if their case isn’t suited for plea bargaining. They just want to get out. But plea bargaining is designed for those who are guilty.

And that brings us back to where we began, the story of Rose. Her case was really tough because even though Uganda has a law that protects trafficked victims, Rose’s case didn’t meet the technical requirements under it. And she did steal money, although Rose and her boss dispute the amount, which complicated matters. Only a trial would resolve that factual dispute. So, Rose chose to plea, and she was released from prison. Eason walked her to the exit.

EASON: We get to the prison doors, and I’m like, “Are you ready?” And she’s just beaming.

Hours later …

AUDIO: [Rose sigh of relief]

Sighs of relief and Rose’s happy reunion with her family. Of course, plea bargaining will never be a perfect solution. Not in Africa or the U.S. But Eason says:

EASON: It's just a reminder, I think that God is the God of justice and that we do the best that we can on this side of heaven and that one day all will be made new.

And that’s this week’s Legal Docket.

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