Teshale Aberra is an independent researcher with many years' experience in the legal profession. His current research interests focus on human rights and the role of the judiciary to entrench democracy and rule of law, the factors that affect and the reasons that drive judges in a panel and courts as an ‘independent institution’ to make the choices they make in judicial decision making. He is currently working as a Research Consultant on a project on Hate Speech and Election in Ethiopia with Oxford University Consultancy.
Teshale served as a high court judge and high court president (1994-2000) and President of the State Supreme Court (2001-2006) in Ethiopia. As President of the State Supreme Court he was involved different reform programmes including the National Judicial Reform Program and the Legal Education Reform Program. He initiated and implemented the Oromia State Judicial Reform Program which resulted in the creation of the Oromia Legal Professionals Training and Research Institute in 2006. The Institute is responsible for the provision of initial and in-service training of judges and other legal professionals.
Teshale is a graduate of the Addis Ababa University (LLB, 1994) and has an LLM from UCL (in Human Rights, 2011).