South Sudan's Agriculture Minister at Agritec
South Sudan's Agriculture Minister at AgritecYoni Kempinski

South Sudan's Chief Justice Chan Reech has said that the world's newest country will start using mobile courts to deal with a “backlog of cases in its justice system,” according to the Associated Press. He blames the issue on the lack of judges and corrupt judicial system.

The chief justice says that he has seen “suspects languishing in prison for three years without facing formal charges” and that the police often fail to properly investigate reported crimes.

In a June report, Human Rights Watch said that people in South Sudan were often imprisoned sans justification; “not charged with crimes or provided with lawyers.” In some cases, prisoners were kept detained while uncharged for long periods of time, up to five years.

South Sudan seceded from Sudan last year. South Sudan maintains that “leaders in Khartoum, the capital of the mostly Arab and Muslim country of Sudan, neglected funding for core government functions like schools, medical facilities and roads.”

According to Reech the Ministry of Justice “plans to launch the mobile courts initiative — a traveling band of police officials, judges, and ministry attorneys — in a couple of weeks.”

Human Rights Watch insists that an effective justice system "is a fundamental building block for establishing rule of law and accountability."

(Arutz Sheva’s North American Desk is keeping you updated until the start of Shabbat in New York. The time posted automatically on all Arutz Sheva articles, however, is Israeli time.)