I am currently a member of the Judicial Reform Committee for South Sudan, having been appointed by IGAD (Intergovernmental Authority for Development).
The Committee was commissioned in Juba-South Sudan in July 2022. It is under the Peace Agreement known as the Revitalized (power sharing) Agreement for the Resolution of the Conflict in South Sudan.
The Agreement was signed by 5 Political Parties on September12, 2018. It is the current sovereign document in South Sudan until a permanent Constitution is enacted. It gives legitimacy to the Executive, The National Assembly, the Judiciary etc.
The Agreement was to remain in force untill February 2023, as the elections were to be conducted in December 2022, however, the parties to the Agreement “foresaw” that this was not going to be possible as some key tasks under the Agreement had not been completed, so in August 2022, the same parties signed another Agreement, known as the “Agreement on the RoadMap to a Peaceful Democratic Transitional Period of the Agreement.” This is supposed to run until February 2025, but elections must be conducted in December 2024.
Given the above circumstances, my team has made some progress in the judiciary using mediation and peace building.
