Abstract: The rapid technology of computer and networking plays a prominent role for the rapid global development. However, innovations of computer technologies, in addition to help and faster development, became the target and the instrument for the commission of crime. Currently, computer crimes are the newly emerging and rapidly growing crime. The global nature of computer crime or cybercrime creates a major challenge for national criminal justice systems. Thus, in combating computer crimes, various measures have been taken at the international, regional and national level. At the national level, many countries in the world respond to by enacting new criminal legislations including Ethiopia. Ethiopia amended and replaced the 1957 Penal Code by the 2004 Criminal Code. One of, inter alia, justifications to enact the 2004 Criminal Code is to address crime born of advances in technology such as computer crime. The 2009 ICT Policy and the 2011 Criminal Justice Policy of Ethiopia also reveal the great attention given to computer crimes. However, the 2004 Criminal Code of Ethiopia composed of only six articles (Articles706-711) under the scheme of ‘property crime’. Under these provision, accessing; accession and taking or using data; accessing and deleting or altering; or denial of services on computers, computer system, computer networking intentionally or negligently, constitute computer crime. This research tries to critically analyze how the Ethiopian Criminal Code criminalizes computer abuses according to its unique nature and to what extent the legislative measures are importantly proportional to the prevalence of such crime. Considering the nature, type, impact, and targets of computer crimes and criminals, this research, concluded that computer abuses did not carefully and sufficiently criminalized according to their unique nature, impacts, and the provided punishments are disproportionally lenient.
Keywords: computer crime, nature of computer crime, impacts of computer crime, combating computer crime, the 2004 Criminal Code, principle of proportionality, punishment.
Title: Computer Crimes in Ethiopia: An Appraisal of the Legal Framework
Author: Molalign Asmare
International Journal of Social Science and Humanities Research
ISSN 2348-3156 (Print), ISSN 2348-3164 (online)
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