Excellency State Minister of Justice,

Excellency Pastor Daniel,

Distinguished guests, colleagues, Ladies and Gentlemen

1/ I am very pleased to be with you tonight for the closing session of this legal
drafting training.

I would like to express our sincere thanks to the Ministry of Justice for having co-
organized this event. It is a new token of the confidence established after many
decades of cooperation between our two countries in the field of justice and legal
matters. In this respect, I am pleased to remind the recent visit to France of a high
level delegation, headed by the Minister of Justice, H.E. Getachew Ambaye Belew,
which gave the opportunity in particular to explore the reinforcement of the
cooperation between the French School “Ecole Nationale de la Magistrature” in
Bordeaux and the JOPTC, with the support now of a European Funding (10 EDF), and
I am happy to greet here tonight some colleagues of the European Union Delegation
that I would like to thank for their commitment.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

2/ France has been cooperating for a very long time with the governement of
Ethiopia on its legal system. It began in fact at the end of the 50’s when the French
professors Mr René David and Mrs Escarra and Jauffret have contributed to the
writing of the Ethiopian civil and commercial codes. More recently, since the 90’s,
France has implemented a strong bilateral cooperation programme with the
Ministry of Justice and various Justice organs. Our focus has always been to support
Ethiopia’s efforts in reinforcing the rule of law and to support its efforts to reform
the justice sector in order to make it more efficient, quicker, user-oriented and
protective for the vulnerable groups (notably women and children). Let me remind
you some of the realizations of the French-ethiopian cooperation.

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Among other, we have strongly supported the creation of the JOPTC (Justice organs’
professional training center) that gives training to the regional and federal judges.
To this respect, I’m pleased to confirm here that the JOTPC and the French School
ENM will jointly organize an important international conference in November 2014
in Addis Ababa to discuss about training in the justice sector.

We have also helped the creation of the Real Time Dispatch – to reduce the time
between the arrest and the trial - in Addis Ababa and then in most parts of the
country; we have also supported the implementation of the Prosecution
information system (PIS) in Addis Ababa that allows a better communication among
the police and justice offices.

In the framework of this partnership, we have also worked with a wide range of
actors: NGOs, universities, research centers. This led to successful achievements
such as the book on “The place of traditional justice in the Ethiopian formal justice
system : the case of Afar and Amhara regions ” that Pastor Daniel will present to you
very soon. This research, conducted by Prison Fellowship – Justice for All team,
with the support of French Center for Ethiopian Studies (CFEE), gives interesting
insights and testimonials about the interactions between the two justice systems.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

3/ To come back to what bring us all here tonight, let me say a few words about this
legal drafting training which is in the continuity of our longstanding cooperation in
the justice sector. Indeed, before implementing and applying the law, it has to be
written and if possible, well-written. A well-written, clear and concise law is one of
the key to ensure legal security. It should take into account the political will, the
technicalities of the legal procedures and the consistency with previous laws and
codes. As your trainer, Mr Taillet, has kept reminding you, there are as many good
ways to draft a law as there are legal drafters. I know you had a lot of discussions
this week on how to prepare the law in its relation with a code, on how to translate
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an international treaty in the domestic law and the linkages between the law and
the treaty, on the role of the constitution and on the different aspects of the
parliamentary review of the laws.

I understand that Mr Taillet was so positively impressed by your knowledges and

technical level that he decided to train you to become trainers on your own. I would
like to insist on this : it will really give more impact to this training if each of you,
trainee, agree to train at your turn your colleagues back in your office.

Ladies and gentlemen

4/ To conclude, I would like to thank the French National Assembly and Mr Frederic
Taillet, who has given a lot of his energy for the success of this training session and
has shared his outstanding experience in legal drafting with the participants. I would
also like to thank Mr Eshetu Woldeseyemat, who has strong experience in drafting
laws in Ethiopia and who has brought the Ethiopian perspective to this training.
Thank you also to the Alliance Française for its support.

Last but not least, I would like to congratulate the participants. I am confident that
this week has been very fruitful and I hope that you are going back in your
respective regions and institutions with new ideas and techniques to draft law.

And now, we will have the pleasure to hand over to the participants a certificate.