SANAA, 26 May 2004 — Six Yemeni judges accused of malfeasance and corruption are under investigation by a judicial inspection panel as part of an ongoing cleanup campaign in the country’s judiciary.
“Six judges are already being investigated as part of an anti-corruption campaign in the judiciary,” said the head of Yemen’s Judicial Inspection Authority, Abdul Malik Al-Jindari.
In remarks published on a website run by the ruling GPC party, he said the probe was opened after reports by chief judges and inquiries conducted by field inspection teams.
After initial queries, he said, the inspectors “were certain of violations” by the judges. The violations committed presented “reasonable grounds for not only investigating those judges but even dismissing them,” Al-Jindary said without providing details on nature of the charges against the accused judges.
The move is part of a plan aimed at improving the judiciary. Last December, Yemen’s Supreme Judicial Council fired 13 judges involved in corruption. In 2002 the council, headed by the country’s President Ali Abdullah Saleh, dismissed 35 judges and prosecutors on corruption charges, and the year before the council dismissed 20 judges for violating the law, and forced 108 others to retire.
The weakness of the judicial system is seen here as a main reason behind the low level of foreign investments in this impoverished country.
Yemen has been implementing a judicial reform program supported by the World Bank and other donors since 1997 in a bid to attract foreign investors.
