A little more than a year ago, the CEELI Institute initiated the African Judicial Network (AJN) with judges in anglophone, common law African countries. The aim of this network is to facilitate career growth and development for judges, promote peer engagement, and produce concrete tools such as manuals and guidelines to assist the judges and their peers. Since its launch in September 2021, judges from ten African countries have joined the AJN and have attended events either in person or online.
Today we are delighted to share with you a short video introducing the network and some of its core members, whom we interviewed back in July during a roundtable organized in Nairobi, Kenya. We were privileged to meet with key members of the AJN individually and explore some of the points that the network is trying to address—corruption, independence of the judiciary, and case management, to name a few.
Since last July, the Network has continued to grow and mature. Core members of the network met in Prague in September 2022 and discussed a range of topics, including issues that they would like to focus on during upcoming roundtable meetings and webinars. The Network is currently drafting a set of guidelines on case management, which is expected to be published in early 2023. In October 2022, over 90 judges from the Network met online for a webinar on plea bargaining. Meanwhile, the CEELI Institute team is working on expanding the network with ongoing assessment visits and online meetings with members of the judiciary in Malawi, Namibia, and South Africa.
Looking forward to 2023, the AJN will continue to grow, with a range of activities awaiting the judges. A new series of six webinars on various topics just kicked off on 14 December 2022 and the next in-person roundtable and core group meeting are expected to take place in March 2023 in Cape Town, South Africa.
