Fed: UN could fail in setting up East Timor judicial system

AAP General News (Australia)
12-28-2001
Fed: UN could fail in setting up East Timor judicial system

CANBERRA, Dec 28 AAP - The United Nations could fail in its mandate to set up a successful
judicial system in East Timor, an independent organisation said today.

The Judicial System Monitoring Program has released a report on East Timor's Special
Panels for Serious Crimes.

Co-director Caitlyn Reiger said the special panels were established to try people accused
of participating in violence during 25 years of Indonesian occupation in East Timor.

But she said the panels had not received sufficient resources to establish a functional
and sustainable judicial system when the UN pulls out of East Timor in May next year.

"There's some very basic things that have still not been set up," Ms Reiger told ABC radio.

She said there was not enough court staff, no comprehensive court library and inexperienced
judges could not easily access the laws they were supposed to apply.

"At the moment it is still under UN auspices and there's been a lot of problems with
inappropriate recruitment on the part of some of the international staff who are UN international
civil servants rather than people with expertise in setting up a justice system," Ms Reiger
said.

With four official court languages in East Timor, she said a lack of professional interpreters
was of major concern.

"The judge is asking a question in one language, it has to go through two interpreters
before it can even get to the witness to answer it," Ms Reiger said.

"Most of those interpreters are not professionally trained interpreters, most of them
don't have any legal training and it almost ends up like a game of Chinese whispers."

AAP sm/gl/de

KEYWORD: TIMOR COURTS

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