First Ethiopian legal dictionary under development

 Addis Ababa University (AAU) signed a collaborative agreement to create a Law and Justice Bilingual Dictionary. AAU signed the agreement with FDRE Legal and Justice Research and Training Institute, and Justice for All-Prison Fellowship Ethiopia to produce Law and Justice Bilingual Dictionary, the first in its kind to Ethiopia.

The publication of the Dictionary will resolve the problem which has been hampering citizens from equally interpreting and exercising their rights in front of the law.

The MoU document states that the Dictionary is intended to be completed within three years and to comprise more than 4,500 words.

The project aims to produce English-Amharic Law and Justice Bilingual Dictionary first, and to follow other intended Federal Government working languages like Afan Oromo, Somali, Tigrigna and Afar.

Addis Abeba University President, Prof. Tassew Woldehana, said “the project is about translating and explaining justice concepts into various Ethiopian languages and will help citizens to have a sense of justice and law in their own language”. He said “there has not been a legal dictionary in Ethiopia which has led to a lack of equal understanding of legal issues in the society”.

According to reports from Addis Abeba University, Ambassador Degefe Bula, Director General of the Federal Institute of Justice and Legal Research and Training, said “the dictionary will make a big difference in the legal system”.

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