South Sudan's English Daily Newspaper
"We Dare where others fear"
Several prisoners are languishing under very dire conditions in various prisons across the country. These inmates some juvenile and others above 18 years, have not gone on trial despite staying in jail for several years.
Some of these convicts are innocent and yet their rights to a fair trial continue to be violated because of the persistent shortage of judges in the judiciary, underfunding and delayed investigation by the police.
It is safe to say that justice delayed is justice denied, and this should not be the case if South Sudan aspires to be a country where the rule of law is respected and upheld all the time.
It’s unfair to delay trials of even actual murderers because they are entitled to a speedy fair trial, which is not the case in South Sudan, where several individuals are languishing in illegal detention facilities manned by the national security services and other military intelligence facilities which are unknown.
The fate of such individuals is uncertain as their cases are never heard, despite court orders to the NSS and other agencies detaining them to arraign them before civilian courts of law for fair trial.
Speedy trials are critical in reducing congestion in our prisons, whose conditions are unlivable even to animals.
