Court ruling on South Supreme Airlines sets precedent

The ruling by the Juba County has set precedent in the legal fraternity of South Sudan.

The court on Tuesday awarded 175,000 U.S dollars in compensation to the families of the two pilots who perished in a plane crash in March 2021 in Jonglei State.

The same court had earlier also awarded compensation for the families of 8 passengers who perished on board.

The presiding judge Barnaba Mark Nyikang while ruling on the long-running case, said that he based his ruling on the Montreal Convention 1999 that is applied internationally because South Sudan has not yet developed strong laws on aviation industry.

This development should wake up the government to establish aviation laws that conform to international aviation standards. In addition, the transitional unity government needs to strengthen aviation industry rules and measures to avoid recurrence of similar accidents.

The government has over the past years announced the ban on outdated Antonov planes and yet more accidents have continued to occur over the successive years. This means there is a lacuna somewhere in the enforcement of the ban or existing aviation rules