A lawyer has said the Supreme Court has a legal obligation of reviewing all the death sentences whether individuals decide to appeal their capital punishments or not.

Geffrey Bulla of Geffrey Victor Bulla Advocates told the media that Chief Justice Chan Reech was elaborate in the ruling that acquitted Kenneth Kawonda in a murder case. Bulla said Justice Reech revealed that such cases attract thorough reviews from the top most courts. This is to avert scenarios where individuals are jailed for crimes they did not commit.

 “The decision of Kenneth by the Supreme Court sets up a new jurisprudence in South Sudan because [right now] when somebody is csentenced to death, the right to appeal is not automatic.  But in this judgment, the chief justice elaborated that even if somebody has not made an appeal when he is sentenced to death, the Supreme Court is obliged to review and revise the case thoroughly to see that the whole process at the lower court is done in accordance to law,” Bulla said.

Bulla represented Kenneth Kawonda, an ex-military officer who successfully appealed his death sentence at the Supreme Court and was freed on Thursday, June 10. Kawonda’s case was presided by a three-judge bench comprising Chief Justice Chan Reech, Deputy Chief Justice John Gathwech Lul and Justice Kuc John Akot.

The trio acquitted Kawonda on grounds that he was jailed without proper evidence that he indeed killed Jimmy Jibson in 2008.

The prosecution relied on a witness, who testified that Kawonda had a fight with the deceased on the night his body was found by the roadside.