UNIT ONE

INTRODUCTION TO CIVIC AND ETHICAL EDUCATION

1. INTRODUCTION
2. MEANINGS OF CIVICS AND ETHICAL EDUCATION
2.1 The Notion of Civics
The subject field of civics originates from the nature of human being itself i.e. from the natural
behavior and level of interaction of human beings it self. One basic nature of human beings related
with this statement is the fact that “man is a social animal” whose life is closely related to each
other.
Almost all instincts, demands and progresses of human beings are fulfilled in society. The
superiority that human beings try to achieve over nature and other living things is the result of the
social bond among human beings.If such bond is a requirement for the survival of human beings,
then what should be the pattern of social interaction that exist among human beings is closely
related with the subject matter of civics.
In this regard civics is considered as a subject field which is mainly concerned with teaching
citizens as to how they can live harmonious and peaceful life with other citizens and as to how
they can resolve conflicts peacefully among them selves.
The other basic nature of human being is the political view of philosophy by Plato that, “Man is a
political animal”, which means no human being can escape from the deeds of politics and its day-
to-day life is either directly or indirectly affected by it. For this reason human beings have to know
the workings of politics, institutions that affect their day to day life, norms, principles and laws
which are set in motion by politicians to govern their societies and above all the duties and rights
that they have in the political community in which they are leading their life. So, civics tries to
make them familiar with such and other concepts that make them active and awarded citizens.
Civics as a branch of social science deals with the right and responsibilities of citizens. The term
civics comes from the Latin word ‘civitas’, which implies citizens. Citizens are legal members of a
politically organized community- called state. The term citizen refers to a person who has the right
to be a full member of a particular state, while the actual legal status of membership to a state is
called citizenship. Civics deals with the various aspects of social life of a citizen. It studies every
thing about citizens. The great political thinker, Aristotle defined “man as a social animal”. He
further goes to say that man as a social being interacts with other members of the society. But in
his interaction with the society, there may be cooperation and/or conflict. What matters most is not
why conflict arise among human beings rather the question should be how to solve differences and

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live in harmony with each other. And there fore, civics as a discipline is concerned with the
understanding and the relationship between man and his society.
F.J. Gould defines civics as “the study of institutions, habits and spirits by means of which a man
or woman (citizens) may fulfill the duties and receive the benefits of membership in political
community’’.
It is also concerned with the intensive study and understanding of political institutions such as law-
making institutions or legislatives (parliament), executive bodies, and political institutions of
various type or kinds existing in a country. The purpose of government, the nature of law, and the
way private behavior affects the public order and the political system is also the concern of civics.
2.2 The Notion of Ethics
Webster’s New World Dictionary defines “ethics’’ as “the study of standards of conduct and moral
judgment: the system of morals of a particular person, religion, group, etc’’. The origin of ethics
traces back to ancient Greece during the 5th c B.C in times of Socrates. Socrates one of the great
philosopher, in his dialogues to his student, Plato, initiated the question of ethics.
During the Medieval period of western Europeans, ethics was highly associated with the Christian
church and again in other parts of the world it was linked with the religious beliefs of Buddhism,
Confucius, Hinduism, and Islam. It is also a fact that presently ethics is usually part of religion,
sanctioned by religions authority in some tradition- oriented societies.
Through course of time many scholars like Thomas Hobbes and John Locke base their ethical
theory not on religious belief but on empirical observation. According to Thomas Hobbes when he
enunciated about ethics, he underscored that nothing is good in itself; rather a thing only becomes
good or evil when it is desired or shun by some one. John Locke, on the other hand, associated
good with pleasure and evil with pain. The explanations of modern scholars and thinker were the
attempt to establish ethical code on the basis of rationalism and intellect. Stated in other words,
modern political thinkers tried to base ethical code on human reasoning rather than on religion and
faith.
In general ethics can be understood as:
 the value or rule of conduct held by a group or individuals;
 Deals with human action from the moral point of view, as right or wrong, good or bad;
 Rightness, honesty of behavior or action.
3. Civic and Ethical Education
Civics and ethical education is an education for the citizens of a country. The intention behind this
subject is to create active, competent, and responsible citizen in the country. Citizenship education

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was started by the Greece and the Romans. And during the medieval period of Europeans it was
given along with religious education. As the church lost dominance over the state during
Renaissance, the impact of religion in public education also declined in many countries. The
impacts of the English Revolution (1688), the American war of Independence,(1776) and the
French Revolution (1789) for the growth of the subject civic education at the international level
was paramount significant.
When we come to Ethiopia, civic education was introduced in to the school curriculum during the
reign of Emperor Haile Selassie. During that time, the subject gave more emphasize on the glory
of the emperor, sacredness of the Emperor, his unquestioned power, his hereditary rights’ perhaps
we may infer that there was no separation between the subject civic education and religion.
The Derg had also introduced its own political education in to the education school curriculums.
The Marxist-Leninist ideology was highly preached for the mere reason that Ethiopia used to
follow socialist ideology by then. In order to produce a competent, active, informed, responsible
citizen the current government in Ethiopia has introduced civic and ethical education in to the
Ethiopian school curriculum. In a country where there is a prevalence of democracy, schools are
free to teach students and students have the right to criticize, or not to accept any ideology, which
they did not favor. Students as part of a community are expected to exercise plural and
contradictory issues. To ignore controversial issues is to give students an incomplete education, i.e.
to let not to think carefully and critically about their concern. Civic education presently aims at
developing the capacity to make judgments from convictions and to act boldly on values. Civic
education helps students to develop responsible ways of thinking, believing and acting. It is based
on thinking, choosing and making decisions to act. In nutshell it helps students to connect what
they learn with how they live since learning is for living.
4. Sources to Learn Civic Education
Civic education is a tool for good citizenship, community service and personal responsibility.
Civic education is strongly related with other subject, that is, it is an interdisciplinary subject. As
an interdisciplinary subject, it borrows its important contents and methods from different areas of
studies. It is based up on the principles, findings and theories of different fields of studies. A
theory is a statement of a leading idea for explaining reality. It is a systematic presentation of facts.
These facts may serve as guide to make observation and discovery in order to arrive at a general
explanation and a viable prediction. Generally speaking, it is possible to categorize sources to learn
civic education in to theoretical and documentary sources.

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I. Theoretical Sources of Civic Education
I. Philosophy: - is one theoretical source of civic education. As a universal science, philosophy
deals with the ultimate causes of all things in a rational and critical manner. This emanates from
the fact that human kinds since ancient time had the desire to know and figure out the essence of
nature, the meaning of life, death, the ups and downs on earth. Because of human’s ambition to
these questions, the subject philosophy loomed as a distinct rational body of knowledge. Via this
subject, human beings persistently were seeking the ‘ultimate’ answer to the questions they used to
raise. The reason why it is called a universal science is related with the fact that it studies all
aspects of reality like the nature of knowledge, morality, the place of human beings in this physical
world, politics, how human being are organized, how to come to power and so forth. With in
philosophy there are many sub-branches. Among these, one is metaphysics (theory of being).
Under this, what is the ultimate source of reality is raised. As the name indicates metaphysics
means those that are beyond the physical and philosophers who are concerned with metaphysics
are always in search of reality, which they believe is permanent and immutable. Epistemology
(theory of knowledge) which deals with the origins and essences of knowledge, and with the
different criteria of truth is also the other sub-branch of philosophy. Philosophers form standards or
yardsticks that truth must constitute. They endeavor to establish the nature of the correspondence
of theory and practice. Ethics is a branch of philosophy that deals with what is good and bad, and
with moral duty and obligation. In other words it is concerned with the clarification of fundamental
moral or ethical concepts, principles, and the critical discussion of positions and perspective. It
endeavors to raise fundamental moral question and to provide logical and meaningful answers to
them. The various ethical theories and explanations are based on social facts. The intention behind
ethics is how to attain good things and avoid evil things.
It is obvious that philosophers since time immemorial have been trying to give different
explanations to the different questions that may arise in human history. The answers forwarded by
them have considerably affected different people in different positions be it political scientists,
educators, scientists, researchers, governments, that is in short every walk of life. The contribution
of this subject to civic education is that it will help students to identify truth from falsehood, fact
from myth, knowledge from opinion, objectivity from mere faith. In general it will lead to a new
insight about one self and the world around.
II. Political Science: - It is the academic field that takes as its sole and general task, the analysis of
politics, especially the politics of the state. It focuses primarily on governance. Political science
deals with power relations, authority and legitimacy. Furthermore, it analyses the activities of

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governments, the process of political division making and the distribution of political power. The
field of political science is divided in to sub-fields. The major sub fields, among other things, are:
 Comparative politics: - It refers to any study of foreign government and politics. It is
the systematic classification of political phenomena and the investigation of
uniformities, differences, interrelationship among various political systems. The
objective of comparative analysis has been not only a more realistic understanding of
alien political systems, but also the formulation of generalization and hypotheses about
universal characteristics of government.
 International politics: - The studies of politics between states-the making of common
decisions for a group of states through wars, diplomacy, and so on.
 Political theory: - The history of ideas about politics and critical discussion of
political values.
 Public policy: - The analysis of the product of politics, the kinds of politics that are
laid down.
 Political behavior: - The study of individuals and non governmental organization
involved in politics and why they do what they do. Studies of public opinion, elections,
interest groups, and political parties would fall under this heading.
 Political Institutions: - The study of national government bodies, the congress, the
presidency, the bureaucracy, and in part the courts.
It is obvious that political science will help students to become more familiar with local, national,
and international issues and there by analyze public issues and participate actively in the political
scenario of their country. This will also enable citizens to influence the government and other
decision-making organs. They can also actively involve in the formulation, adoption and
implementation of public policy if and only if citizen are aware of world politics. There fore, via
civic education, political science caters for you with the knowledge of political theories;
understanding of the nature of governments; awareness of political powers and relations at the
local, national and international level; methods on how to analyze political issues; policies; laws;
governmental activities; and skills necessary for political participation.
One thing that needs to be inculcated is that human relations and interactions are so dynamic, and
the study of polities and the discipline of political science should be in a constant state of change
and development to respond to the demands of the society. More importantly, with representative
and participatory democracy becoming the fashion of the day, politics becomes even more
dynamic.

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III. Sociology: - As the name indicates, it is the study of society in its entirety, human groups and
organization. It is concerned with social interaction by which people influence one another through
different means like by talking, playing, teaching, helping or even fighting. The relation between
sociology and civic is that in sociology it will help as to understand the culture, norms, the
traditions of different societies. There fore, students of civic will develop the nation of tolerance,
respect in terms of differences of culture, norms, values, tradition among societies. Students can
appreciate diversities in many aspects by analyzing sociology.
IV. Economics: - As a branch of social science, it tries to harmonize the unlimited wants of human
being with available scarce resources. It is also the study of the process of production, distribution
and consumption of goods and services. By adopting different alternative options and mechanisms
to the economic problems that human beings face, it is possible to do away with those problems by
studying economic activities, decisions and policies. Human beings have faced many economic
problems that are to be tackled. Some of the problems are issues of development, improved living
conditions, labor, capital, investment, monetary, inflation and deflation and so on.
The relationship between economics and civic is that unless human being are able to address the
socio-economic problems that they face, it would be very hard to have a prevalence of the rule of
law, good governance, lasting peace and so forth. There fore, economic issues and civic are
inseparable.
V. Law: - Law is also one theoretical source to learn civic education. It is one of the social science
disciplines that deal with the system of rules and regulations that govern the relations of legal
persons in a society. The law is a collection of rules laid down by the government, binding all
members of the state, including members of the government itself. It also expresses a combination
of declarations, rules, orders, directives, norms etc. These are intended to govern the activities of
the members of a society. Laws are applied in the courts and enforced by the organs of the state.
The Law does two things: (1) it sets society’s norms and rules for behavior; for instance, it may
state that one may not steal other’s property, that one may not expose one self indecently, or that
religions practice other than the state religion is illegal. (2) It sets the rules by which individuals in
the state must relate to each other-rules governing divorce procedure, rules for the honoring of
contracts, and so on. In its regulatory nature, law is either coercive or permissive. That is, some
laws prohibit citizens from doing certain things and some others permit to do. These coercive or
permissive aspects of the law are applicable without any distinction what so ever. When the law is
applicable to all citizens of a nation regardless of their differences in sex, language, race, ethnic
background, religion etc. is said to be the prevalence of the rule of law.

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Civics deals with constitutions, legal rights and duties of citizens, the rule of law and human rights.
These points relate civics to law.
VI. History: - As a discipline of social science, it deals with the past events and based on the past
it interprets the present and based on the present it is possible to predict what will happen in the
future. The study of history mainly emphasizes on the total experience of human beings organized
in society. In other words, it means that history generates a body of scientific knowledge for an
understanding of the political, economic, social, cultural, national etc… aspects of a given society.
It is from history that a competent and an active citizen can exhibit civic virtues, patriotism and
national pride. They will also be very much considerate to the rights and freedoms of others and
abide by the rule of law. Competent and active citizens with virtues become the genuine inheritors
of their cultural heritage. In nut shell, studying history equips students with the: historical
knowledge of political, economic, social and cultural conditions of one’s country as well as the
world at large; ability to apply the experiences acquired from the past to new situations of the
present; continuity and causation in history; insights appreciation and understanding of how the
present life has come in to being and the capacity to forecast about the future.
VII. Geography: - It is study of the spatial distribution of natural and social phenomena with their
dynamism. Society is overtly limited in time and space. It is also a fact that with in society there
are relations and interactions, cultures, and activities, natural and man made resources and the like
all to be found in the universe. Therefore, geography is concerned with all these things.
As far as geography is concerned, the different formidable challenges that human beings faced
such as conflicts and wars, rampant epidemic disease and population explosion, environmental
hazards and depletion of natural resources, drought, famine and so forth all have relations with it.
Presently people of the world are coming to gather or in simple terms, the world is becoming a
village. Therefore, the incidents in one country do have a considerable impact on the lives of other
people of the world. Hence, in order to grasp events and happenings around the world it will be
very nice to be equipped with the knowledge of geography.
The following statement may best explain the importance of geography, that in case there arises a
border conflict or confrontation on the utilization of common natural resources, therefore, to
understand these issues we need to have the knowledge and skills of geography. Because it
demands investigating the temporal and spatial origins of the problem. In order to tackle the
problem we need perhaps knowledge of maps of all kinds. Geography helps to develop knowledge
of the natural environmental as a holistic interconnected and universal system for it is concerned
with various interactions between social and natural environments. It indeed develops awareness of
the universal dependence of all life up on complex interactions with the environment. Hence,
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 active, responsible, competent citizens should strike a balance between utilization and preservation
of resources, self-development with international sensitivity, and maintaining the earth to be clean
and safe for life.
ii. Documentary sources of Civic Education
Students can also learn and become competent and responsible citizens by reading, discussing,
debating on the different documentary sources. Besides the theoretical sources, civic education has
diverse documentary sources. Constitution be it written or unwritten; international human right
charters; and the charters of global and regional organizations, decisions and enactments of legal
bodies, historical sources, films, photographs and so on are some of the documentary sources of
civic education.
The international instruments as one documentary sources of civic education include, among other
things, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948)- it deals with those inherent and
inalienable rights that belong to all people with out any distinction what so ever. These rights are
universal that is they are common to all. The UDHR’s intended to bring lasting peace and assure
the prevalence of international brotherhood among peoples of the world. The Convention on the
Right of the Child (1989) is also one international instrument, which is related to the rights persons
under the age of eighteen. Recognition and protection of the child rights is very crucial since the
future belongs to the child. The convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination
against Women (1979) is also one international instrument; Convention on Refugees and Stateless
Persons are sources to learn civic education.
5. Goals of civic Education
The aims and objectives of teaching various subjects are normally very similar and they are
generally guided by economic and social considerations .The aims and objectives of teaching
civics include all the aims and objectives of education. The goal of civic education can be realized
by the active participation of citizens in a society. The extent and intensity of citizen’s active
participation reflect the realization of the goals. Civic education has the following basic
goals/objectives.
1. Ideal citizenship- The most crucial aim of teaching civics is to create ideal citizens, that is to
acquaint students all the qualities of an ideal citizen. It includes believes in equality of opportunity for
all people; puts the general welfare above ones own welfare; realizes the necessary connection of
education with democracy and so forth.
2. National character and patriotism- For a country to progress effectively its citizens must be
soaked in the spirit of patriotism. Citizens should be prepared to sacrifice every thing for their
motherland. They should also be proud of their identity, cultural heritage and uphold the values of the
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society. These things can be implanted in to the minds of students at their impressionable age, in a
psychological and scientific manner. The teacher should try to develop national character in them and
base it on the virtues of co-operation, love, sympathy etc.
3. Development of democratic outlook and strengthening Democracy: Democratic out looks
should be inculcated in to the young generation. This can be possible by teaching students
democratic values, principles and cultivate them in such away that they could shoulder the
responsibility of their country.
4. Providing citizens with the knowledge and intellectual skills which are very important to
monitor and influence government rules, decisions and actions that greatly affect individual rights
and with out which the good of the society do not materialize.
5. Strengthening National and International Integration: - Teaching civic education can succor
students to create a sound base for the continued oneness and unity of country. Presently the world
is becoming a village as a result a man can be a real citizen of his/her country only when he/she
possesses in international outlook. This out look greatly helps to have the attitude of cooperation
and peaceful way of living.
In general civic education entails the following pertinent issues:
 Teaches citizens their rights and duties.
 Promotes cooperation and co-existence in society, mutual understanding and peaceful way of
resolving conflicts.
 Develops a national and international out look (because it is the age of internationalism or
globalizations).
 Produce good and responsible citizens
-Promotes the culture of tolerance, coexistence with the existence of different faiths, language,
culture etc…
-Avoids social evils such as regionalism, corruption, chauvinism etc.

UNIT TWO
ETHICAL ISSUES
1. INTRODUCTION
2. Morality and Ethics: Definition and Subject Matter
The terms “morality’’ and “ethics’’ come from the Latin and Greek terms, ‘mores’ and ‘ethos’,
respectively. The term ethics was given such meanings as custom, temperament, character and
even way of thinking. In ancient philosophy the term was also used to implicate the terminological

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meaning for permanent character of social and physical phenomenon. For example the ethos of
water, the ethos of fire (it burns)…
Delineation of boundary between ethics and morality may turn to be a challenging task since both
have been used interchangeably for long. This has also made a separate definition of the concepts a
bit difficult. But ethics can generally be viewed as, “the area of philosophy that is concerned with
the study and analysis of what is good and what is bad, what is right and what is wrong”. It also
attempts to arrive at an understanding of the nature of human values, of how we ought to live, what
constitutes the right conduct and good life for human beings and what is the good reason for acting
in one way or the other.
The definition tells that ethics has a deep concern on human actions, and it studies these actions
with respect to their being right or wrong. This indicates that the subject matter of ethics is
contributed more by the actions of individuals and social groups. These actions are mainly related
with voluntary actions of thoughtful nature.
But further discussions must be considered on the principles and standards of defining (measuring)
which actions are good and which others are bad, and right or wrong. This takes us to the
discussion and definition of morality.
Morality pertains directly to the situation of acting on moral basis. It incorporates the basic
principles and standards of measuring and differentiating between right and wrong or good and
bad behavior. The concept in morality helps an individual to determine whether his actions are
right or wrong. So morality pertains to the specific codes and principles that human beings do
really use to guide their actions by employing those codes as a yardsticks or standards of measure
to evaluate their actions as right or wrong.
Moral philosophy seeks to establish principles of right/good behavior which may serve as an
action guides for individual and groups. It investigates which values and virtues are paramount to
the worthwhile life of society.
Such moral standards and principles mainly turn to be socially constructed realities to certain
cultural groups. As a result, individuals in such groups may be required to go inline with these
standards. The existence of such moral conventions in societies and conformity/adherence of
individuals to them may sometimes determine the continued existence of that community as a
community. With out communality of moral behavior individual members would have irregularly
gone their way and the living togetherness may have been eroded.
Here it would be necessary to define what moral values are. They are socially accepted evaluations
of objects of the surrounding world. They are general idea or a standard that people share about
what is good and bad, right or wrong etc…. Moral values can express negative or positive
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meanings for man and society and serve as reference points in the daily social activities. Thus
moral values serve as standards to judge or evaluate our actions and those of others.
Therefore, generally speaking morality directly pertains to the action of individuals and groups and
it provides the concepts and principles of evaluating their actions in their being right or wrong.
Whereas, ethics is a field of study or science that makes a philosophical analysis of morality, the
systematic endeavor to understand moral concepts and justify moral principles and theories. It
under takes to analyze such concepts as ‘right’, ‘wrong’, ‘permissible’, ‘ought’, ‘good’ and ‘’evil’’
in their moral contexts. Ethics is concerned with values, not what is, but what ought to be. It raises
such issues as how should I live my life? What is the right thing to do under certain situation? Is
abortion a permissible act? Do I need to revenge my enemy? Should we always tell the truth?
Etc…
So, whereas the specific principles and standards that guide the actions of individuals is the
concern of morality, the study and analysis of these principles and the actions is the concern of the
field of study of ethics. Ethics therefore, is a science that study morality it self.
Such points may help:
 Ethics reflects the analysis of right and wrong conduct whereas morality pertains to the actual
patterns of conduct.
 Ethics is based on the reflective analysis of moral behavior.
 Ethics studies human actions from the moral point of view as good or bad or right or
Wrong.
Once moral principles are constructed in a society they will come in to effect in the day-to-day
activity of the society and individuals. It may also be included in the general rules of the society in
the form of legal restriction and juridical correct conduct. Because as morality does, the law is
concerned to promote wellbeing, resolve conflicts of interest and brings social harmony. A society
can derive its moral principles from different sources. For instance, religion is one important
source of morality and apart from that existing social objective realities may also serve as a source
of morality.
But there is a difference between religious and secularly derived morality. Secular morality is
mainly grounded on reason and common human experience, whereas, religious ethics takes the
words of divine authority as a reference point to construct moral ideas.
The subject matter of ethics can be broadly categorized in to normative ethics and meta-ethics.
Normative ethics deals with issues like what actions are right or wrong? , What situations and
conditions affect and influence individuals or groups to act one way or the other? How can one
evaluate, criticize or persuade the actions of somebody?
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In general, it refers to the human nature and, how and why human beings act in certain way in
some specific situations. It may study such questions as: are human being good by nature? Why
human beings kill each other? Why do they steal others properties? Why do they turn envious
etc…It also studies the function of morality to man’s life. For instance, what benefits do human
beings acquire in being good and moralistic. If human beings are good and moralistic, they can
maintain peaceful life and be respected in their society. Meta ethics, on the other hand, analyses
and studies the meaning of ethical terms and judgments in normative ethics.

Therefore, it studies the origin and meaning of ethical terms as good, bad, right and wrong?
Normative ethics deals with the badness and goodness of actions, while meta- ethics deals with the
terms themselves what does it mean by the term good or bad and right or wrong? Its finding may
be used to give moral judgment in normative ethics.
2.1. Is Morality Absolute Or Relative?
Do we have universally accepted moral values or such values are socially constructed and can only
be applied in that society? is one question that must be treated under the study of ethics. There are
different philosophical views concerning this issue.
Ethical Relativism is the notion that there are no universally valid moral principles, but that all
moral principles are valid relative to cultural or individual choice. Ethical relativism is further
dissected in to:
a) Subjectivism: views morality as a personal decision i.e. morality is in the eyes of the
beholder. This approach reduced morality to only individual and personal affair.
b) Conventionalism: views moral validity in terms of social acceptance. This approach has
a relatively broader out look on morality giving it a broader social spectrum.
On the other hand, ethical objectivism agrees on the universal validity of some moral codes and
standards.
Different societies and cultural groups view life in different ways. This can be reflected in varieties
of manners. Societies differ in how they are going to dress, greet one another, eat, celebrate
festivals, dispose of the dead, and carry out social transaction. Even we may grasp a difference on
how individuals greet in societies, is it handshake or a hug? A kiss? A bow?
One thing that erodes the universality of moral principles is the fact that, what is really accepted as
a moral principle in one society may be cursed and considered as negative value in another. One of
the most striking facts that emerge from a study of widely varying culture is that, what is
considered abnormal in one culture may be found to be the corner stone of another social structure.

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A moral action is one that falls within the limits of expected behavior for a particular society. The
chosen behavior pattern of that culture is normal for that society. Those individuals who are
nurtured in that culture even accord prestige from those values. The vast majority of individuals in
any groups are shaped to the fashion of their culture. The moral values of societies cannot be
objectively judged as right or wrong because the societies have independent standards of
measuring right and wrong.
Therefore, cultural relativism believes that there is no such thing as universal truth in ethics, there
are only the various cultural codes, and they are not to be given special status because they are just
one among many.
But a deep scrutiny of molar issues shows that it is difficult to take molar relativism for granted.
There are some values that have universal acceptance and be applicable regardless of cultural
variations.
For instance, racism and apartheid has been glorified in South Africa and a policy of anti-Semitism
was run by NAZI Germany but such values today are not accepted across the board. Telling truth
can be taken as another example of a universal value. Life would have been difficult if human
beings do not believe what they are talking each other. Furthermore, in a society where murder is
not prohibited or outlawed, leading secured life turns very difficult. In such a case every body
watches and guards him/herself carefully from another person. Life turns to be full of suspicion.
As a result we may come to the conclusion that, there are some rules that all societies will have in
common, because those rules are necessary for societies to exist. So, even if many of our practices
are merely peculiar to our society, there are common values that we share with other societies.
Dear students, why do you think we need to study morality and what relationship does it have
with our education to citizenship? This is because shared citizenship requires shared values. For
example, we have a common Ethiopian citizenship. At the same time we have common values and
norms. This is given that; we do also have differences in ourselves. Different groups within our
context have varieties of norms and values.
The issue here is that we should understand, tolerate and support the differences in values. For
peaceful existence, citizens of a country need a general agreement on a system of moral values.
That means the members of a particular society should agree on what is desirable and undesirable,
right and wrong forms of conduct to a good life. Thus the members of a particular society like
Ethiopia have a common moral values and norms.

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3. Ethics and Moral Responsibility
While we are living in society, we would be expected to accomplish varieties of responsibilities.
But all the responsibilities may not be compelled by our bosses or by some other higher
authorities. We may be given formal responsibilities in the failure of which we will be
accountable. Other than this we have responsibilities that we have to discharge by ourselves.
Responsibility is the duty or obligation of a person or a group to do something. As a member of
group, community or society, a person has both an individual and collective responsibilities.
Individual Responsibility refers to the moral and legal obligation related with taking care of
oneself and one’s own action, fulfilling one’s own personal responsibility to oneself, family, friend
and others in one community and nation. Collective responsibility is the responsibility shared by
all members of a group, community or nation to protect the common good of a society. The
common good requires that citizens take responsibility and have the motivation to promote the
welfare of a society and to work together with other members for the benefit of all. We may have a
set of responsibilities at different levels like at the family level, organizational level and at the
national level.
Individual responsibility comprises such roles as, to care for one self and maintain good
personality, supporting one’s own family, and caring for nurturing and educating one’s own
children. It also includes adhering to moral principles, considering the rights and interests of other
and behaving in a civil manner.
In organizations where we discharge our duties for the common good we would be expected to
fulfill other sets of responsibilities. Such organizations play a larger social role in different ways.
Well accomplishment of these roles is the function of the activities of individuals that took charge
of the positions in such organizations. So, diligence of individual members and their being serious
in strictly observing and adhering to their professional standards is very much necessary. It is at
this point that organizations can achieve their social objective.
There are also duties and responsibilities to be discharged at the national level. The conduct of
such duties by individuals is very important for the nation as a whole. Such are called to be civic
responsibilities that include obeying the law, being informed of public issues, assuming leadership
when it is appropriate, paying taxes, voting, monitoring the adherence of political leaders and
governmental agencies to constitutional principles, taking appropriate action if that adherence is
lacking etc… Civic responsibilities require individual citizens to be active participants and keen
observers of their nation’s issue. At a minimum level, citizens should acquaint themselves with
critical issues confronting their society and vote intelligently for the right candidates that may
solve these problems.
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Moral and legal responsibilities emanate from our activities and from the social and political
condition in which we are living. Some of the sources of our responsibilities are the law, custom
of our society, our occupation, assignment, appointment, promises, citizenship, moral principles
etc… Generally speaking, individuals living in a society may have such legal and moral duties as:
Being diligent to one’s own job/task
Taking care of oneself and one’s own family.
Keeping promises.
Observing laws and social values.
Keeping public property.
Protecting the well being of the environment.
 Keeping cultural and historical heritage
 protecting the boundary of the state and preserving the independence of the country.
The fulfillment of these and other duties by individuals benefits the individual with mental
satisfaction, by increasing his reputation and acceptance from others and also rewards and
promotions for his/her diligence.
It will be also have a paramount effect on the whole society at large. What we have to know is the
above requirements would give us a framework of what an ideal citizen should be. But we can
imagine what kind of society and nation we are going to have if most citizens fulfill these duties
and responsibilities.
Let us see these legal and moral responsibilities broadly. Diligence to one’s own task is one very
important source of responsibility of individuals. A government delivers public service to the
society. These services are to be provided through the institution of the government itself. These
institutions are staffed by no body but the citizens, whose professional and technical skills are
important to deliver services to the whole society at large. These civil servants can discharge the
best of their capacity to the public if and only if they are serving honestly and adhering to the
ethical standards established for their job. We will have a broad discussion on professional ethical
standards in the next part of this modular unit.
Participation in civil and political matters can be taken as another form of a responsibility of
citizens in a society. Social problems confronted by a society can be approached for solution from
social and political actions. Individual citizens can make more participation in the social actions of
resolving one’s own societal problem. This may include making voluntary contributions
(intellectual, labour, money) helping the poor with no means of livelihood, helping kids having no
parents etc. Active participation of citizens in political matters is also important for further

15
advancement of a state. These include issues like voting, forming and being member of a party and
work for its objective, changing a regime peacefully, to elect and be elected for public posts etc.
These are things that we indulge ourselves based on our own initiative with no formal or legal
pressure. So it is only our moral responsibility that makes us do these things and be part of them.
Responsible individuals should also observe the law and the social values of their society. Citizens
are expected to respect the customs adopted by their societies and their obligation that emanate
from the formal laws of their country. A legal obligation is a duty imposed by law that specifies
the types of actions permitted or forbidden or required. Non-compliance to such laws causes
punishment. The law brings fairness, equality, and stability if and only if citizens and those who
execute the laws respect it. So we have both moral and legal responsibility to go in accord.
By the same token, responsible individuals would be expected to maintain the moral and ethical
values as established by their societies. These values in society govern the smooth relationship
between its members. This morality pertains to character, conduct, intention, social relation and
others. Good citizens maintain the moral and ethical values of their society. The obligations of
members of society that emanate from these values are mainly moral obligations. They rest mainly
up on ethical consideration. They are not imposed or enforced by law, unless it is provided in some
kind of disciplinary rules issued by the concerned body. There may not be law to govern actions of
citizens and regulate their behavior. Here these moral values help to regulate the behavior as a
standard. Such values helps to maintain the society and act uniformly. They bring about peace and
stability. So individuals have a moral responsibility to respect and maintain the value of their
society and refrain from committing things that disturb its stability and peace.
Keeping one’s own promise is also important ethical moral value in the lives of individuals.
Entering in to promise in effect causes one to assume obligation in which he becomes responsible
to discharge it. Once a person entered in to promise to that effect he/she is declaring the duty to
bear on him/herself. Whether that person is respecting his/her promise is based on the ethical
consideration of the person him/herself. So, good individuals respect and keep their promise,
because he/she has at least a moral obligation to do so as a member of the society.
Keeping public property and historical and cultural heritages of the society is also another set of
moral obligation to be respected by individuals. Wise use of resources and protecting public
property from depletion and wastage is the moral responsibility of citizens. In addition, cultural
and historical heritages should also be maintained protected by citizens of a state as a means of
maintaining one’s own history and culture.
Furthermore, individuals have the more and legal obligation to protect the environment in which
they are living. Today environmental degradation is one of the most challenging problems that
16
human beings are confronting. Individuals can contribute both in refraining themselves from
polluting and degrading the environment and by putting inputs to the environment for its
protection and maintenance.
The duties that we have seen still now are to be accomplished more by the moral initiation of
individuals than legal constraints and obligation. So, maintenance of ethical and moral
responsibilities helps to make much contribution to oneself as well as to the broad society at large.
All of us need to know what is up to us and what is not and seen towards our responsibility to have
positive contribution to our life and the life of our society.
3.1 Work conduct and Professional Ethics
Dear students, we hope you are interested on the points that were raised in the previous parts of
this unit. In this part we will see and discuss some points on professional ethical standards (code).
The issues under this topic are very important and closely related with your professional capability
and performance in the future. Follow the lessons carefully and do all the activities to your level
best.
Professional standards are inseparably related with the works that we human beings do to sustain
our life, especially with those works that require professional capacity. Work is the most valuable
activity in the life of human beings. It is the driving force and the rolling wheel behind the survival
of human beings and their civilization. This is why it is believed that people has to give deep
concern for the works that they are doing. Professional ethical codes/standards are of significant
help to determine the proper behavior and discipline that individuals should conform to their
profession.
The concept of ethical standards is not new. For thousands of years, people recognized the need for
regulations or codes of ethics. For instance, in Babylon from 1792-1750 BC., one of the greatest
kings developed the famous codes of Hammurabi, the credo of which was that “the strong should
not injure the weak’’. Probably one of the most recognizable standards is the Hippocratic oath, the
code of ethics to which physicians (medical doctors) subscribe. Its foundation dates back to 2000
BC. Most professional organizations acknowledge the need for such principles, to offer a
framework for accountability.
In times of ancient human civilization because of the simple nature of life they were leading,
individuals were trying to fulfill most of their demands by themselves. In later times because of the
increasing number of population and more complexity of life people began to become
interdependent for the fulfillment of their needs. Human civilization is also marked by the
increasing tendency of professionalization of tasks. The complexity of ideas, concepts and even

17
terminologies in professions made it difficult to specialize themselves in all areas. Therefore, the
need to efficiency and effectiveness required specialization of individuals in specific professions.
This is how the need for code of ethics arose for professions. The idea here is that these specialized
people are charged with the responsibilities of discharging their service for others who are not
familiar with the subject area. The ultimate necessity of professional ethical codes arises here;
when each professional is required to deliver his/her service with utmost sense of responsibility
and to the best of his capacity to the satisfaction of his/her customers.
Therefore, professional ethical codes can be defined as, specific expected behavior of workers in
the same areas of specialization. These standards enable workers to differentiate the right way of
conduct from the wrong in providing their services/ discharging their responsibilities. Ethical work
conduct enables workers to possess proper behavior, so as to develop proper relationship with
other workers, their customers and all in all to create a good industrial environment.
Professional standards are becoming more and more acute among societies as an irreplaceable
instrument of regulation of the specialist behavior, as specific mode of their self-expression and
assertion.
Now a days, workers are not only required to have qualified and competent level of knowledge in
their profession but also to know and apply their professional code of ethics. The observance and
adherence to ethical codes enables a professional to exploit its inward capacity and materialize its
knowledge in front of those who need its service.
Non-observance and negligence to conform to one’s own professional ethical codes has its own
consequence both on the individual professional and the work environment as a whole. First and
for most, the quality of service to be provided deteriorates as the professionals discharge their duty
arbitrarily with less or no reference to their ethical codes.
The dignity of that profession also erodes as people develop negative conceptions about
individuals in that specialization. This may lead to the further deterioration of the reputation of
individuals in that profession. Moreover, the consequent violation of ethical codes by professionals
leads to the diminishing quality of service. This will arise discontent, criticisms and in the extreme
since inhibits the professional career of such people, as they may face punishment for negligence.
3.2 Field Related Ethical values
Dear students, we hope you don’t expect all field related ethical codes to be discussed in this unit.
We will decide later on how you come to know about your ethical codes. For the time being let us
broadly classified professional ethical codes in to specific field related ethical codes and general
(universal) ethical codes. Specific codes of ethics are those, which can only be viewed and applied

18
to a certain specific profession. Whereas, universal ethical codes are those that can be referred, and
complied by all professions altogether.
Let us now see some very important and significant universal ethical codes that should be
applied by all professions. Some of the common disciplinary rules expected from workers in all
professions include; punctuality, proper utilization of instruments of labour, working in
cooperation with fellow workers, developing professional skills and execution of commitments
entrusted etc…are code of ethics that must be observed by workers in different profession. Let’s
see these professional rules one by one:
 Punctuality: one must avoid wasting regular work time on non-productive and personal
activities and avoid him/herself from absenteeism. A worker should come to work place on the
time set for work. He/she must always avail him/herself in working places and meet deadlines
when required. Time is the most important and precious of all resources used by human society.
Time can never return nor recreated unlike other commodities. So, it is a resource that requires
delicate and wise handling. This irreversible and precious nature of time made the issue of time
management pivotal. Good time management results in increased productivity, cost effectiveness
and effective utilization of human resources. One who wants to manage his/her time properly
should follow such procedures as; setting clear personal goals, categorize duties in order of
priorities, properly communicate one’s goal to individuals with whom collaboration is necessary
and avoid procrastination (postponing roles for tomorrow).
Absenteeism is one known negative effect to proper use of time in working places. There are
voluntary and involuntary natures of absenteeism. Voluntary absenteeism refers to non-regular un-
reported absence from job, whereas, involuntary absenteeism is absence from place of work
because of factors beyond one’s own control. Frequent irregular absenteeism from work reduces
productivity, personal income and inhibits national economic development.
 Proper use of instrument of Labour: Professionals may get access to instruments of labour by
virtue of their official and professional positions. They have to use these instruments effectively
and efficiently. Careless use of official instruments results in unnecessary leakage of resources,
which is collected from nowhere but from the public itself. Good management of resources avoids
unnecessary wastage and increases cost effectiveness and productivity.
- A worker should also maintain good social relationship with his/her work mates. This is the most
important conduct for any work. One has to have team spirit and interpersonal skills in order to
create a good industrial environment. If industrial atmosphere is conducive, better level of
productivity can be achieved. Intermittent conflicts in working places destructs industrial peace

19
and reduces co-operation among workers. This causes uncontestable effect on the productivity and
efficiency of workers.
 Labour discipline at work place: A worker must give priority for his/her work. He/she has
to show high level of respectability, industriousness and soberness to his/her job. He/she has to
submit him/herself to his/her own work. Avoid oneself from any other characters and addictions
that would negatively affect productivity. It is only through productivity that one can achieve self-
reliance. The best way to fight dependency is promoting hard work with good labour discipline.
 Distancing oneself from corruption: It is obvious that some professions are highly susceptible
to corruption. But no other profession can escape from the evil deeds of corruption, for it is very
pervasive and broad in its nature and definition. Today corruption is the most difficult social evil in
many countries of the world. It is one of the inhibiting factors for development in many countries.
Its elements are so many that it may incorporate some of the points we discussed above.
“Corruption is a behavior which deviates from formal duties of public role because of private
regarding (personal close family, private clique) status gains, which may include bribery, ex-
appropriations, nepotism, mishandling and abuse of authority”.
By the same token, the abuse of public office for private gain is an aspect of corruption, which is
committed when an official accepts, solicits, or exhorts a bribe. It is also abused when private
agents actively offer bribes to circumvent public policies and processes for comparative advantage
and profit. Public offices can also abuse even if no bribery occurs through, patronage, nepotism,
the theft of state assets, or the division of state revenue, unequal and unfair treatment in public
offices, etc.…
So, corruption has lots of manifestation other than only its traditional of bribing money and
exploiting state assets for personal benefits. Even the previous two universal ethical codes as
proper use of public resources and punctuality can be grouped in to corruption in their reverse
form.
Corruption is generally practiced as a “low risk, high profit’’ activity and it can be extremely
difficult to prove but it is a crime in which the victim is a general public. However, it is
distinguished from other types of criminal activities such as theft and burglary in that it has some
unique features like subordination of public interest to personal ones, its secrecy by means of
official power, attempt to camouflage the corrupt act by some form of lawful justification, the
presence of mutual obligation and benefits etc... .
The devastating nature of corruption is testified from the experience of many countries of the
world. As a result, professionals both for the sake of themselves and their societies are advised to
abstain themselves from these acts.
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In Ethiopia too, as a response to this problem an office of Anti-Corruption Commission is
established and a civil service reform is also underway as a means of fighting against corruption.
Others such as developing professional skills and sound execution of commitments entrusted are
work ethics, which should be expressed by every worker. In general the degree to which purely
professional and moral traits are fused and the strength of this unity determines the success of the
work, the integrity of man’s personality and the measure of this creative self -expression.
Still now, we dealt about universal ethical codes that are applicable across professions. But what
about specific field related ethical codes, for each professions. As we mentioned previously these
are code of ethics that helps to shape the behavior of workers in the same areas of specialization,
by showing the right way of conduct in that specific field from the wrong way of conduct.
Establishment of code of ethics is a necessity for each and every profession. For all practical
reason in almost all professions, wrong way of conduct should be differentiated from the right.
History has shown that the need to set higher moral standards initially felt in such professions as
medicine, law, education, science, journalism and the arts. This is because these areas are much
more sensitive and related with the daily life of people. Today the legal profession has a code of
professional responsibility, the medical profession has its Hippocratic oath, and the accounting
profession has its own code of ethics… In addition many other professions have their code of
ethics. But it is very difficult to discuss the ethical codes for each profession in this modular unit.
As a result students will be expected to engage themselves in identifying the ethical codes for their
fields of studies.

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 UNIT THREE
THE STATE, GOVERNMENT AND CITIZENSHIP

1. INTRODUCTION
2. States and Society
We all live and work with others. Every day we come in touch with all kinds of people from
different walks of life. Our relationship with these people involves shared interests, feelings and
exchange of information, services and goods. Several organizations or institutions and families in a
neighborhood which share common interests are called communities.
A large number of communities that have social, cultural, and economic interactions
constitute a society. A Society is an organized group of people living together in a given territory.
When a society is politically organized, it forms a state. The state is, therefore, the most highly
organized political structure of a society. It keeps the members of that society together as citizens.
The state makes the rules, principles and laws of the society it belongs. The most important
elements of the state are population-people living together; territory – claimed to belong to those
people; government – that executes the wishes of the state; and sovereignty- independence form
external interference.
2.1 The Origins of the state

Historical evidences show that politically organized existence of people can be traced to the
emergence of society itself. The emergence of state is linked with a certain level of development of
human society. Obviously, since that level of development, human society has maintained an
organized existence. In this regard, various historical, archeological and anthropological studies
indicate the existence of organized societies since the beginning of human history at least in their
rudimentary forms such rudimentary society include the family, the clan, the tribe, etc…
Originally, the need for organization of people was associated with the desire for common
protection from natural or human-made disasters and danger. The origin of the state can also be
explained in association with the social decision of labor that gave to the private ownership of
property, and hence the beginning of the formation of social stratification of members of society in
to classes. Some scholars are still of the opinion that the rise of agriculture mode of economy in the
great river basin encouraged permanent settlement of people there by leading to the creation of
states.

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2.2 Contending theories on the origin of the state
There are so many contending theories that try to explain the origins and purposes of the state.
Some of these are:
A The Natural or Evolutionary or Anthropological Theory
This theory claims that the state gradually and slowly evolved out of earlier forms of settled human
communities, such as the family, the clan and the tribe. According to this theory the state is seen as
natural to organized and settled social life.
B The Divine Right Theory
According to this theory, the state is seen as an institution created by God. This theory claims the
state to be of a divine creation. Rulers were regarded as God’s-own representatives on earth. That
is, it is of God’s will that in human society some are born to rule while other are born to be ruled.
Moreover, the theory assures that the social order, in which the position of the individual is
determined hierarchically on the basis of birth, was God-given and thus immutable.
C. The social contract theory
The social contract theory believes that the state is an artificial creation based on the voluntary
agreement or contract among people. This theory strongly advocated that the state is established by
the consent of the people and its main purpose is to safeguard people’s inalienable rights such as
the right to life, liberty and property. This theory praises popular sovereignty, limited government
and individual rights.
D. The Force Theory
The staunch proponent of this theory is Jean Bodin. According to him, the origin of the state is a
matter of conquest; one group conquers another by force and the leader of the victor’s assumes
ultimate authority.
This theory associates the emergence of states to wars and conflicts that have been endemic in the
history of human beings. Accordingly, wars of conquest resulted in the occupation of more and
more territories and led to the rise of states. According to this theory, the state is primarily seen as
an entity created by the use of physical force. In other words, the state is created through a process
of conquest and coercion of the weak by the strong. Hence, military might and physical strength of
a society is considered to be of paramount importance for the creation and consolidation of the
state.
E. The Marxist Theory
Marxism believed that in per-class society people were living communally. There was no private
property, no market and no institutions. According to the Marxist theory historically, the state was

23
originated from the split of society in to social classes with sharp and polarized economic interests.
The formation of social classes is associated with the emergence of private property. The rise of
the state with its agent-the government- established to make laws, is, therefore, directly related
with the emergence of private property and the need to safeguard it
2.3 Structures of States
Presently we find many states. All of these are not similar in a number of ways. Some states are
very small in their territorial extent and population. Others are very large. Also socio-economic,
cultural and technological factors differentiate states. Some states are highly developed in their
social and economic aspects; however, others are less developed and very poor. States are also
differentiated by the way they organize their people/societies. Some states provide freedoms and
rights for its citizens and others provide little or no freedom for their people.
States can also be differentiated by the structures of government they have. There are two main
forms of structuring governance in state. These are the unitary and the federal structures. The
federal and unitary forms of government are basically distinguished by the degree of power shared
between central and local levels of government.
A. Unitary state
A unitary state is one in which no other governmental body but the central government has any
areas of policy that are exclusively under its control. In a unitary state, local and regional political
bodies may potentially be over ruled by the central government in any political decision they
make. All the authorities and powers are exclusively in the hands of the central government. The
central government plans and decides the duties of every public service throughout the country. In
practice however, the central government delegates certain administrative responsibilities because
it can not completely centralize all matters. A majority of world state have unitary systems.
Unitary state structure does not mean under participation of the people in the governance of the
country.
This indicates that in such state structures there is one central source of power and that is the
central government. There is very less or no power that is left for the local units to practice
independently. The existence of these units is justified in such a way that they can serve as an
administrative agents through which the central government can have reach, communicate and
implement its policies.
Another most important feature of a unitary state structure is that, the local units and their
existence is mainly dependent on the interest of the central government, unlike federal states where
their existence and power is legally defined by the states constitution.

24
Because of this reason the central government may challenge their existence, increase or decrease
their power.
However not all unitary states have the same political structure and decentralization of power.
They differ in terms of the extent of power decentralized, the structures of the units and the level of
control employed by the central government. Accordingly we can state such plethora’s of unitary
states;
- There are unitary states that allow decentralization to the local units but the power and
existence of the units is not legally or constitutionally entrenched.
- We can also have unitary states with almost no decentralized power to the units and there is
strict control and supervision of the centre over them
- In some others we may see some centre local transfer of power but the former directly
appoints administrators to the units that are directly accountable to it, by which the power
is re centralized.
The fact that unitary states are mainly known for centralization of power does not necessarily
imply that this system is always disadvantageous. There are situations and country context where
this system is more applicable than others.
Merits and demerits a unitary state
The merits may include:
o There is only one state and government and there is no constitutional division or
distribution of power between the central and local governments. There is only one source
of power and will. And hence it can bring about uniformity of law, policy and
administration though out the country.
o There is no conflict of authority, no confusion of responsibility for work to be performed,
no overlapping of jurisdiction, no duplication of work, plan or organization.
o The unitary state is simple in structure and less expensive because the absence of
duplication of governmental departments and services.
o A unitary constitution is suited for as small country with a homogeneous population.

The demerits can be explained as follows:

 There is no strong regional institutions and the regulations of local policies and affairs by
distant and far-off authorities.
 There is additional burden of responsibility on the central government and leads to
greater red-tapism and bureaucratic administration.

25
  Central authorities often the necessary knowledge of local conditions and needs; and the
consequence of it is that local interests suffer.
 The unitary state structure tends to suppress local initiative and discourage interest in
social problems.
B. Federal state
Federal form of state is the one in which power is formally divided between the central
government and certain regional governments, each of which is locally supreme in its own sphere.
Powers and authorities are clearly separated and divided among the central (federal) and regional
governments. Usually these powers are clearly specified in the constitution. In federal systems, the
central government usually has exclusive control over foreign, defense and monetary policy. And
other power and authorities are exclusively assigned or reserved to regional governments
A federal system has often been the result of a compromise by which reluctant members were
induced to join in a state. Federal systems usually exist where there was some difficulty in uniting
the state or where the state is so large or so culturally diverse that it is thought there may be
problems holding it together. Small states are less likely to be federal systems than large ones
because problems like these are more likely to have cropped up in large states with diverse
population. Most large states in the world are federal. It is most of the time true that multi-ethnic
states do also adopt the federal structure. However, one should bear in mind that the form of
federalism in all state is not necessarily the same. States apply different principle and reasons for
federation. Similarly, the degree of autonomy exercised at regional or local levels is not similar in
all cases
In unitary state, autonomy is given by the central government, but in federal state, the autonomy of
regional state is not given by the central government but rather by the constitution.
There fore the most important feature of a federal state is the existence of two governments with in
a state as, the federal/central government (government of the whole country) and regional
governments (governments of parts of the country). This division is strengthened by the fact that
both levels of governments are given with their own power and authority that they can
independently exercise from each other. The constitutional division of this power entails that both
levels cannot intervene into the power and jurisdiction of each other. It also guarantees that the
central government cannot arbitrarily withdraw the power and structure of the regional units.
The basic essence behind having a federal arrangement in a state is the need to decentralize state
power to regional units as a means of empowering them to deal with their affair by themselves.
Any federal arrangement can be created in one of the two ways;

26
 A. Federalism through aggregation: is federalism created with a voluntary unity of
previously independent states after reaching compromise for certain common purpose under a
central government sharing power with the federated units.
B. federalism through disaggregation (Devolution): is a federal state that is created after a
previously highly centralized state compromised to share a considerable extent of power to
regional local units.
Furthermore there are different sets of power that are divided among the two levels of governments
A. Exclusive power: the power specifically left to the federal government
B. Residual power: the power that is left to the regional governments
C. concurrent power: is the common jurisdiction of both levels of governments
Advantages and disadvantage of federalism
Advantages:
1. it affords opportunity to small and weak states to unite into a powerful state without
loosing their independent existence.
2. it is valuable to big states with vast population and with racial, cultural and linguistic
diversities.
3. by the distribution of power the central government is relieved of the burdens and
congestions crated by heavy administration. This in turn discourage red-tapism and
bureaucratic administration.
4. by giving local independence to the people of the units, it stimulates their interest in
public affairs.
Disadvantages:
1. Possibility of conflict of jurisdiction between the two levels of governments
2. It is costly: it requires ample economic resources to manage two sets of
governments
3. It creates weak government by dividing internal sovereignty
4. Requires much more educated man power
5. There is a possibility of danger of secession.

C. Confederal states
Confederal states are simply voluntary associations of independent states, based up on the
common agreement of states expressed in an elaborate document. Such an arrangement is created
for common advantage without affecting the internal freedom, structure, law making and enforcing
process and external relations. This common interest may be common economic interest, common

27
military threat, common political interest etc…For example if their common interest is military the
main task of the central government will be to organize military activities among the member
states.
The central government established by these members of the confederation will be provided
with some very limited power and authority as an expression of their common interest. In such
structure the member states are in a better power position than their established central government
and the centre is under their dictate.
The member states are also at freedom to interrupt their membership from the federation
and to cease the existence of the centre based on their agreements

2.4 Functions of the state

The state is a universal institution because it is responsible for a complex set of political,
economic, social and cultural activities of organized human societies. The activities of the states
emerge from some sets of social needs. In other words, the state performs its complex
responsibilities in response to some social needs of a specific society. The functions of the state
vary in different places and periods. Some functions are as old as the state itself, while other
functions are added recently.
In broad terms, the spheres of activities of the state include:
1. Maintenance of law and order in society. Social order is extremely vital for the normal
functioning of societal affairs. In the absence of a certain degree of order, there prevail
chaos and disharmony. The state makes various sets of laws and these laws are assumed as
binding to all members of that society.
2. Protection and security of citizens: The state is responsible to protect against collective
threats and dangers of aggression. The state resists external threats and insecurities through
diplomatic efforts, international law and ultimately through use of violence or war for
defensive purposes.
3. Providing services and welfare to citizens: The policies of the state are supposed to
redistribute resources and benefits to various members of society. More specifically, the
state deliberately intervenes to benefit the most affected and impoverished sections of
society in terms of education, health and social facilities.
4. Belongingness and civic development of citizens: The state encourages a sense of
belongingness among its citizen. It is responsible for the moral and civic development of its
citizens.
3. GOVERNMENT
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Government is one of the most essential components and also an administrative wing of a state.
Government is the executive agent that acts in the name of the state and its people. As an agent of
the state, a government works to promote and safeguard the interests of its population and maintain
its territorial boundaries. Government is the body of the people and institution that make, enforce
and interpret laws. Government differs from other organization because of its comprehensive
authority- rule are applied to all members of society, involuntary membership-most people initially
become citizens of a nation and subject to its rule with out any deliberate choice or conscious act,
authoritative rule –are generally recognized to be more binding up on all members of society than
the rules of all other organization, and legitimate monopoly of overwhelming force. Government
as one attribute of a state has responsibilities in keeping the smooth run of all administrative
organs.
3.1 Forms of Government
The earliest and most famous system of classification was developed by the Greek philosopher
Aristotle in the 4th c B.C. He distinguished among three benevolent kinds of government- where
the ruling authority acts only according to legal guidelines, ruling in the interests of the entire
society, and three corrupt counter parts where government acts only on its own selfish interest. The
three benevolent kinds of government are monarchy (rule by one), Aristocracy (rule by the few),
and polity (rule by many). These three are degenerated in to tyranny, oligarchy and democracy
respectively when government acts only in its own selfish interests.
A. Monarchy
It is one-man rule. Such governments exist in two forms :
(I) Traditional monarchy-The king or the queen maintain his/her position by
the claim of legitimate blood decent than their appeal as popular leaders
(II) Constitutional monarchy-The king or the queen is ceremonial head of the
state, an indispensable figure in all great official occasions and a symbol of
national unity and authority of a state but lacking real power.
B. Totalitarianism
It is essentially a system of government in which one party holds all political, economic, military
and judicial power. This party attempts to restructure society, to determine the values of society,
and interfere in the personal lives of individual citizens in such away as to control their
preferences, to monitor their movements, and to restrain their freedoms. With modern electronic
devices, the state is able to control communications and private activities and there by regulate
political life and thought, and also through electronic data control it is able to coordinate and
centralize the utilization of resources and there by regulate economic life. The six basic features
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common to all totalitarian states are an all- encompassing ideology, a single party, organized
terror, monopoly of communications, monopoly of weapons and controlled economy.
C. Authoritarianism
Authoritarianism is a system of government in which power is exercised by a small group with
minimum popular input. The group may be a family, in which case the authoritarian regime is an
absolute monarchy.
Authoritarian governments generally do not attempt to control every aspect of human society.
Many economic, social, religion cultural, and family matters are left up to individuals.
Authoritarians view society as a hierarchical organization with a specific chain of command under
the leadership of one ruler or group. Command, obedience and order are higher values than
freedom, consent and involvement. Therefore, the citizen is expected to obey laws and pay taxes
that he or she has no voice in establishing.
D. Constitutional Government
It is defined by the existence of a constitution that effectively controls the exercise of political
power. The two major constitutional governments are: the presidential system and parliamentary
system.
Presidential democracies most clearly show the separation of power between the executive and
the legislative branches. The chief hallmark of these systems is that the president is not just a
figurehead but also a functioning head of government. He or she is elected more or less directly by
the people. The president is vested with considerable powers, and cannot be easily ousted by the
legislative body.
In parliamentary system, the head of state (figurehead monarch or weak president) is an office
distinct from the head of government (prime minister, premier or chancellor). In this system, the
prime minister is the important figure.
In parliamentary system voters elect only a legislature, they cannot splits their tickets between the
legislature and the executive. Presidents in presidential systems are not responsible to legislatures.
The close connection between the legislature and executive is broken. Presidents are elected on
their own and choose cabinet ministers or department secretaries from outside the ranks of the
legislative body.
3.2 Major Organs of Government
In the contemporary world the government is composed of three major organs –legislature,
executive and judiciary. Each organ has its own distinct role-the legislative makes law, the
executive enforces law and the judiciary interprets the law.
A. The Roles of the Legislature
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 The main propose of legislative bodies, in theory, is to formulate the laws that govern society.
In practice, the degree to which the legislature acts as law initiator varies among political system.
Ideally, legislatures initiate laws, propose constitutional amendments, ratify treaties, control tax
(revenues), and act as a check on the other branches of government. The chief job of democratic
legislatures is supposed to be that of rule initiation; making the laws that governs society.
The structure of parliaments- Bicameral or unicameral
Some two-third of the legislative bodies in the world have two chambers, an upper house (the
US Senate, the British House of Lords, or the German Budestrat) and the lower house (the US
House of Representatives, the British House of Common and the German Bundestang). These are
called bicameral (two chambers) legislatures. Despite its name, the upper house usually has less
and some times much less power than the lower house; only the two houses of the US congress are
coequal
A small number of parliaments are unicameral (one chamber) such as China’s National
Peoples’ Congress, Sweden’s Riksdag, and Israel’s Knesset. Yugoslavia once experimented with a
five-chambered parliament. South Africa has a various (and properly temporary) three-chambered
parliament with one house each for whites, mixed-race peoples, and East Indians. The majority
black population was not represented in the national parliament of South Africa.
The reason for two chambers is clear in federal systems. The upper house represents the
component parts of the federal system, and the lower house represents districts based on
population. The utility of an upper house in unitary systems, however, is unclear.
B. The Roles of the Executive
Political executives are government officials who participate in the determination and direction of
government policy. They include heads of state and government leaders- president, prime minister,
premiers, chancellors, cabinet members, ministers, counselors and agency heads. Executive
officials play two quiet distinct roles: as chief of state- which is the official who acts as
government’s formal head and spokes person and head of government-the official who leads and
supervises the officials and agencies that initiate and enforce government’s policies.
The general powers and functions of the executive include enforcement function, formulation and
execution of administrative policy, control of military forces, and conduct of foreign relations.
C. The judiciary body
The judicial body is an organ responsible to interpret the law. Law may be defined as “that which
must be obeyed and followed by citizens, subject to sanctions or legal consequences’’
Types of law
There are five major branches of law
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 I. Criminal Law- Modern criminal law is largely statutory (or code)
law and covers a specific category of wrongs committed against persons or institutions. Acts
defined as criminal are considered as social evils and are threats to the entire community because
they disturb the public order or threaten the public welfares. Consequently, the state rather than
the aggrieved party is always the prosecutor (plaintiff). Offenses are usually divided in to three
categories: petty offenses, such as traffic violations, are normally punished by fines. Offenses
that are somewhat more serious but not major (eg. gambling and prostitution) are known as
misdemeanors, and are characteristically punishable by larger fines or short jail sentences. Major
crimes, called felonies (e.g. rape, murder, robbery, and extortion), are punished by imprisonment.
II. Civil Law –Many legislative acts (statutes) govern civil rather than
criminal matters. Marriage and divorce, custody of children and inheritance and bankruptcy and
the conduct of business are civil concerns.
Civil law is distinguished from criminal law in that it provides redress for private individuals or
corporations who feel they have been injured. Because a breach of civil obligation is not regarded
as endangering the peace or welfare of the community, private individuals conduct most civil
litigation.

III. Constitutional law –Written constitutions are usually general

documents that describe the organs of government, their powers, and individual guarantees of
freedoms. General legislation and court interpretations most fill in the details.
IV. Administration Law-A relatively recent development,
administrative law includes the regulatory order enacted by appropriate government agencies.
V. International Law- It consists of international treaties and conventions and long- established
customs recognized by most nations. It is a very special body of law because it cannot be enforced
in the same way as national law.
4. Citizenship
States cannot be understood in the absence of citizens and citizenship. In the same way,
citizenship cannot be explained with out the state. Thus, the notion of citizenship is important both
to the state and to individuals, since it denotes a basic relationship between the state and its
individual members.
The term citizen is derived from a Latin word ‘civitas’, which means resident of a city, as is used
by Greeks. Citizenship refers to rights and duties of citizens. It is the official recognition of an
individual’s integration in to the political system. That means, citizenship is the status of a person
to be a member of a particular state of country. With out the status of citizenship, a person would
32
be ‘‘stateless’’. i.e. he would not belong to any state. Therefore, a status of citizenship gives a
person his/her official recognition of the state to exercise citizenship rights and fulfill the
responsibilities.
Citizenship in all states is not the same. Non-democratic states reduce their people to mere subjects
that have very limited or no rights. Democratic states, however, have people/citizens/ that govern
themselves and enjoys freedoms and equal rights in all aspects of life.

4.1 The historical Development of citizenship

In order to understand better citizenship, it will be very nice to go back and assess the
different historical, political, social, and cultural episodes that influenced and shaped the
development of citizenship.

Whenever the term ‘citizenship’ was used through out history, it implied a combination of
obligations and privileges in the relationship between an individual and the state. The major
differences lie on the size and significance of the citizenry relative to the population and extent of
the rights and privileges given to citizens. The historical development of citizenship can be
disclosed as:
a. Citizenship in Ancient Greece
The idea of citizenship was commenced in Greece showing equal political rights combined
with duties and obligations. In ancient Greece it was not all the members which were
provided with equal rights. Stated in other way, the Greek though, founders of classical
civilization and exercised democracy for the first time had not opened the door of democracy
for all members of the city states. There was a big division among the citizens, plebeians, and
slaves; the then social groups in Greece. The citizens were few in number but held almost all
power with in the society such as directly participate in public affairs and decision-making
processes, they had the right to elect or be elected, to own private property, to debate and
make political speeches. Although, the plebeians were free members of the society, they did
not enjoy political rights. They owned little property, depending on their labor for earning
their living and constituted the lower class of the society. The slaves were not free and had no
political rights what so ever. They were considered as properties of their owners.
Generally speaking, although the Greek were the first builders of democracy, their political system
was discriminatory, in the sense that citizens alone enjoyed exclusive social, economic and
political rights.
b. Citizenship in Ancient Rome
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 The Roman Republic was transformed in to the Roman Empire at the down of the Christian era.
Roman citizenship at first was a device for distinguishing between the Romans themselves and
the inhabitants of the territories incorporated with in the Roman empires. So as to enhance
allegiance to the Rome, the residents of the occupied territories had been granted Roman
citizenship. In the later periods, when the Roman Republic were disintegrated and resulted in
absolute rule the people were treated as subjects not as citizens. Citizenship was confined to a
small and privileged group of the Romans only. Women were not considered as citizens. Only
those citizens were men who owned property. However later on, by 212 AD in order to promote
loyalty to the Roman Empire and its rulers, citizenship right was extended to all free residents of
the Roman Empire whether natives or inhabitants of the conquered territories.
C. Citizenship in Medieval Times
The idea and practice of citizenship deteriorated with the fall of the Roman Empire and theories of
feudalism in Europe. During these periods the people were anticipated to give their full allegiance
to the feudal lords or specific Kingdoms. Regardless of their loyality, they were not treated as
citizens and the term ‘’citizenship’’ was not used to include the people at large. Under this system,
there was little thought of citizenship. The political and legal relationship between the serfs and
king was non-existent. Rather, the peoples were considered as mere subjects rather than citizens. It
was only the economically privileged persons that were considered as citizens.
D. Citizenship in Modern Times
The modern notion of citizenship is highly related with the rise of the demands of the people for
escalated freedom and involvement in political, economic, cultural and social affairs of their
respective state. The contribution of the French Revolution and the American War of
Independence in the development of citizenship was indeed considerable.
Through course of time, the notion of citizenship came to be accepted as an instrument to enhance
individual liberties, popular government, political equality and participation. Citizenship became
the most pertinent political cohesion that related the individual with the state more vocally with the
consolidation of modern nation-states. This means that the status of citizenship grew from city-
state to nation-state implying a resident of one state.
4.2 Aspects of citizenship
I. The social Aspects: citizenship refers to the rights and duties of citizens. These rights and duties
of citizenship are directly related to the social and cultural norms and values. Hence, citizenship
has a social aspect in it. In other words, citizenship is a social phenomenon. It is a fact that
citizenship can be attained through parent’s nationality but the ascription of a parent and a child is
a social process, not a mere biologically given episode. Stated in other words, the selection of
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persons involved in relationship of parenthood is social even if the content of the role of parents
varies historically and cross culturally, and with in the same society.
Adoption and marriage can be mentioned as they are social aspects of citizenship. In the case of
adoption, the full rights and responsibilities of parenthood are transformed from natural to social
parenthood and the child’s social and kinship position is also transformed from the biological
childhood to social hood. In this case, a social person is created by appropriation and people
become parents in every sense other than the genetic factor.
There fore, the social aspect of citizenship discloses that the rights and duties associated with
citizenship status are socially determined and are socially distributed.
II. The legal Aspects: The legal aspect of citizenship can best be understood from the ensuing
statement that: the term “citizenship entails a relationship between an individual and a state
originating under terms prescribed by the law of that state and giving rise to certain duties and
rights, which such law attaches to citizenship’’. The above explanation reveals the fact that
citizenship has a legal aspect. Different countries pursue different laws in granting and denying
citizenship status. Even the same country can have different laws depending up on the prevailing
political conditions of that state.
III. The political Aspect: The political system in a country affects the citizenship status. In a
dictatorial or authoritarian political system, the rights and privileges of citizenship are enjoyed by a
small group of the society but the majorities are merely required to fulfill their responsibilities or
duties as members of that country. In a democratic system, however, citizens are expected to
express their allegiance to their nation and obey the laws. Citizens are treated equally with out any
discrimination.
4.3 The Process of Acquiring Citizenship
Acquiring citizenship varies from country to country depending up on the existing specific laws of
each country. There is no clear cut uniformity in acquiring citizenship status. That means there is
no common standard that govern all state of the world. Thus different states pursue their own
specific laws in granting and denying citizenship. Hence, the idea of citizenship is left to the
domestic jurisdiction of the state.

However, this does not mean that the state should follow arbitrary and groundless decision in
granting citizenship. Some broadly shared normative and customary principles are underscored to
minimize arbitrary deprivation of citizenship. In nut shell, the process of acquiring or loosing
citizenship involves complex issues related with the interest of states as well as the intentions and
interactions of individuals.
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The three ways of acquiring citizenship are by birth, by law (naturalization) and dual (mixed)
system.
A. Citizenship by Birth
It is a fact that the majority of peoples in almost all countries acquire citizenship at birth. Usually,
people do not change their citizenship after acquiring by birth. The two different principles and
modes of acquiring citizenship by birth are jus soli and jus sanguinis.
Jus soli- It is a Latin phrase to mean right of soil. A child born in a particular state automatically
becomes a citizen of the state in which he/ she is born irrespective of his/her parent’s citizenship.
What matter most is the birth place of the child. A child born in one state territory has the right to
require citizenship but this is not always true to all. To make it clear, for example delegates of
foreign countries with diplomatic mission and international organization representatives and
workers can not claim citizenship with in their working territory.
Jus –sanguinis- It is again a Latin term to mean the right of blood. It does not consider the place
of birth as important. Advocators (supporters) of this principle give the child the citizenship of its
parents automatically. What matters most in jus sanguinis is that the citizenship of the parents,
irrespective of the birth place. As far as Ethiopia is concerned it is clearly stated in proclamation
No 378/2003 Article 3 that any person shall be an Ethiopian national by descent where both or
either of his parent is Ethiopian. Further more for an infant child who is found abandoned in
Ethiopia shall, unless proved to have a foreign nationality, be deemed to have been born to an
Ethiopian parent and shall acquire Ethiopia nationality.
B. Citizenship by Law
Actually citizenship is attained by birth, but there is also times when citizenship is acquired by a
process known as naturalization. Hence, naturalization is the alternative method of acquiring
citizenship after birth. It is a process by which a state confers its citizenship on an individual, who
is originally not its citizen, as a matter of some voluntary acts and intention of the individual.
Obviously naturalization is under the authority of the state. The individual is expected to fulfill
some sets of criteria set up by that particular country. Citizenship by naturalization embraces
marriage, legitimation, option, acquisition of domicile, and so on. According to proclamation No.
378/ 2003, Article 5 a foreigner who applies to acquire Ethiopian nationality by law is expected to
fulfill the following conditions:
1) One who have attained the age of majority and be legally capable under the Ethiopian law;
2) Have established his domicile in Ethiopia and have lived in Ethiopia for a total of at least four
years preceding the submission of his application;
3) Be able to communicate in any one of the languages of the nations/ nationalities of the country;
36
4) Have sufficient and lawful source of income to maintain himself and his family;
5) Be a person of good character;
6) Have no record of criminal conviction
7) Be able to show that he has been released from his previous nationality or the possibility of
obtaining such a release up on the acquisition of Ethiopian nationality or that he is a stateless
person, and
8) Be required to take the oath of allegiance stated under Article 12 of the proclamation which says
that ‘’ I-----, solemnly affirm that I will be a loyal national of the Federal Democratic republic of
Ethiopia and be faithful to its constitution’’.
Marriage: - If a woman marries a man of another country, she can have the possibility of
acquiring her husband’s country citizenship. The woman has the option of choosing citizenship of
her husband’s and deleting her own country. Proclamation number 378/2003 Article 6 clearly
explains the fact that a foreigner who is married to an Ethiopian national may acquire Ethiopian
nationality by law when one fulfills the following requirements:
1) The marriage is concluded in accordance with the Ethiopian laws or in accordance with the laws
of any other country where the marriage is contracted;
2) There is a lapse of at lease two years since the conclusion of the marriage;
3) He has lived in Ethiopian for at least one year preceding the submission of his application; and
4) He fulfilled the conditions stated under Article 5(1,7,8) of the proclamation stated above.
Any child adopted by Ethiopian national, based on proclamation No 378/2003, may obtain

Ethiopian nationality by law when the following conditions are fulfilled!

1) He has not attained the age of majority,

2) He lives in Ethiopia together with his adopting parent;

3) Where one of his adopting parents is a foreigner, such parent has

expressed his stated in writing ; and

4) The condition stated under Article 5 (7) of the proclamation has been

fulfilled.

 The government of Ethiopia also grants citizenship rights to those foreign individuals who

have made an outstanding contribution in the interest of Ethiopian with Ethiopian Nationality by

law irrespective of the conditions stated under sub-Articles (2) and (3) of Article 5 of

37
proclamation No 378/ 2003. Such types of acquiring citizenship is called special cases or

functional Nationality.

 A person who has acquired Ethiopian Nationality by law may apply for his minor child living

with him in Ethiopia; provided, however, that where the applicant is the only naturalized parent,

the consent of both parents shall be required for naturalization of the child. A child whose

application for naturalization has been submitted in accordance with sub-Article (1) of this Article

9 shall be conferred with Ethiopian nationality where the applicant is able to show that the child is

released from his previous nationality or the possibility of obtaining such release.

Legitimation: - This is citizenship by recognition. An illegitimate child has the right to get his/her
biological or caretaker father after Legitimation. Such process is usually attributed to a father of
multiple citizenship. Any child adopted by Ethiopia national, based proclamation No 378/ 2003) ,
may obtain Ethiopian nationality by law when the following conditions are fulfilled:
Grant on Application: - Different countries pursue different requirements to grant citizenship,
depending on their rules, by application. If individuals satisfy these requirements they can be
admitted to become citizens of those particular states. According to the 1930 Ethiopian citizenship
decree the requirements for naturalized Ethiopian citizenship were:
- One who is majority (legal age), one who stayed in Ethiopia for at least five years; Not
dependent; one who speaks and writes Amaharic language; Not accused of crime or
other related illegal matters and who presents human witnesses.
Besides the above mentioned processes of attaining citizenship, citizenship can also be procured
by political case (process). It refers to acquisition of citizenship by conquest or cession of territory.
In this case, the entire population of the newly incorporated area may be made citizens of the
conquering state, although inhabitants of the territory sometimes are given an option of
maintaining their former citizenship. Consequently, when large number of citizens acquires the
same citizenship at the same time, it is referred to as collective citizenship.
C. Citizenship by Mixed (Dual) System
There are times when a person finds himself/ herself with dual (multiple) citizenships. This is
because of the existence of citizenship laws or naturalizations or termed as registration. When a
person has citizenship status of two countries, it is dubbed as dual nationality (citizenship). A
person may have one because of his/her place of birth (jus soli) and another because of his/her
parent’s citizenship by blood (jus sanguinis). When a person has citizenship status of more than
38
two countries, it is termed as multiple citizenship. Some people have more than two citizenship
both as a result of jus soli and jus sanguinis as well as naturalization.
4.4 Modes of Loosing citizenship
As different states pursue different principles in granting citizenship status, it is also true that
various states also adopt different principles on those citizens who violate the nations citizenship
laws.
In some states nationality may be renounced. The reason could be when the state harasses the
person (s) and when the person dislikes the policies or politics or ideologies pursued by the state.
A citizens may also be deprived of his/her citizenship, if he/ she is guilty of committing certain
serious crimes against the state such as to make access national secrets to alien country; to side
enemy state forces in time of war and so on. Citizenship may be lost if the person stays outside of
his/her country for along and continuous period. Ethiopia also pursue different mechanisms or
ways in denying citizenship rights. Renunciation is one mechanism way of loosing Ethiopian
nationality when the following conditions are fulfilled which are explained in Article 19 of
proclamation No 378/2003:
1) Any Ethiopian who has acquired or has been guaranteed the acquisition of the nationality of
another state shall have the right to renounce his Ethiopian nationality.
2) An Ethiopian who intends to renounce his nationality in accordance with this Article sub Article
(1) shall in advance inform the authority in the form prescribed by the authority
3) The renunciation of the nationality of a minor child pursuant to sub-Article (1) of this Article
shall be effected by the joint decision of his parents or, where one of his parents is a foreigner, by
the decision of the Ethiopian parent.
4) An Ethiopian who has declared his intention to renounce his nationality may not be released
until
a) He has discharged his outstanding national obligations, or
b) Where he has been accused of or convicted for a crime, he has been acquitted or
served the penalty.
5) The Authority shall, upon ascertaining that the provisions of this Article are complied with,
issue the applicant with a certificate stating the effective date of his release
6) Any Ethiopian who is not issued with a certificate of release in accordance with sub-Article (5)
of this Article shall have the right to appeal to the competent court.
Where one acquires the nationality of another country that individual will loss his/her Ethiopian
nationality. Therefore, dual nationality is impossible in Ethiopian context Article 20 of
proclamation No 378/ 2003 supports the above statement by stating the following sub-Article:
39
1) With out prejudice to the provisions of Article 19 (4) of this proclamation, any Ethiopian who
voluntarily acquires another nationality shall be deemed to have voluntarily renounced his
Ethiopian nationality.
2) An Ethiopian who acquires another nationality by virtue of being born to a parent having a
foreign nationality or by being born abroad shall be deemed to have voluntarily renounced his
other nationality unless he has declared to the Authority his option to retain it by renouncing his
other nationality with in one year after attaining the age of majority, or unless there has been an
earlier express renunciation of his Ethiopian nationality pursuant to Article 19 (3) of this
proclamation.
3) An Ethiopian who acquires, in the absence of his own initiative, another nationality by the
operation of the law in connection with any ground other than those specified under sub-Article (2)
of this Article shall be deemed to have voluntarily renounced his Ethiopian nationality; if he:
1. Starts exercising the rights conferred to such acquired nationality or
2. Fails to declare his option to the Authority to retain his Ethiopian
nationality by renouncing his other nationality with in a period of
one year.
4) A person who retains another nationality in addition to Ethiopian nationality shall be considered
an Ethiopian national until the loss of his Ethiopian nationality pursuant to sub-Article ( 2) or (3)
of this Article,
4.5. Characteristics of Good Citizenship
The ultimate objective of civic education is to produce a good citizenship for the country. A good
citizen is one who knows and practices one’s rights and responsibilities through participation. A
good citizen is one who is responsible, competent and informed in the whole activities be it
international or national issues. A good citizen includes or fulfills the following pertinent
characteristics: legality, patriotism, responsibility, industriousness, self- reliance, and active
community participation.
A. Legality
Legal equality refers to the right of all citizens to be treated as equals before the law. The idea is
that no person or group may be given special privileges, or unfairly treated by the law. People are
equal before the law. The law should give equal protection to all citizens. The law should also treat
every citizen equally. All people with similar cases should be treated equally, with out favoritism
towards any individual or group.
The central idea of justice is fairness. Justice is the primary concept of fairness. Fairness may be
understood as concern of human beings about their relations and decisions. Equity is a source of
40
justice, which allows a fair judgment of a case where the existing laws happen to be deficient in
that particular case. Equity is recourse to special judicial principles to prevent the possible
deficiencies in the law from becoming a source of injustice; and to correct and balance unbalanced
relationships or discriminations.
Instruments of Justice
There must be certain legal institution that can take the necessary measures to set things right when
acted wrongly or causes a damage/injury to another person. These legal bodies and institutions are
instruments of justice. They are largely given authority to respond to wrongs and injuries. In other
words, they have the power to administer justice in the society. There are two types of instruments
of justice. These are the legal and traditional institutions. The legal institutions of justice include
various institutions and bodies that operate to administer justice in a society. These include the
courts, human Rights commission and the ombudsman.
B. Patriotism
The values of patriotism vary from country to country according to the existing forms of political
system. In autocratic/dictatorial system, it simply means accepting and upholding the values of the
oppressive system and serving for its preservation. However, in democratic system, patriotism is
loyalty to a country in which rights of citizens are respected and protected with out discrimination.
Patriotism is a love for people’s sovereignty. All these pertinent notions emanates from identifying
one’s citizenship with a given country and its people. It also refers to love for its people and the
democratic values and principles up on which the country’s unity is found. It also includes
devotion to one’s country and to the full wellbeing of the society.
New Perspective of Patriotism in Ethiopia
The true sons and daughters of Ethiopia had been scarifying their precious life for the sovereignty
of their country. Besides they had also been loosing their life as a result of their quest for freedom,
independence or in short democratic and human rights. Unfortunately, many of the sons and
daughters were not able to see the fruits of their struggle. Presently, patriotism is understood as a
voluntary action. The citizens of Ethiopian are expected or should give priority to the common
good rather than private interest; struggle for equality of people’s good in all aspects of life,
respect the rights of other people without distinction to their religion, ethnic and linguistic
differences; be a citizen with public mission and actively participate in solving problems affecting
the whole society; be a model of ethical excellence in work , pursuit of knowledge, generosity, and
helping the nation; fight corruption; be self-governing; confident and respect the truth; and stand in
defense of the sovereignty of the people and the development of their country.

41
The new perspective of patriotism in Ethiopia underlines inter alia the two major principles. One is
due respect for the rule of the nation. Every Ethiopian citizen should always be stick to the rules
and the regulations that our country has come up with. Disrespect for the law hinders the building
of a democratic system/ culture. Thus citizens should have respect for the laws and fight others that
violate it. The second one is due respect for and protection of the rights of other people. Common
good is the total sum of protection of individual as well as collective rights. Hence, you as active
citizen of this nation should not only respect but also protect the rights of others.
The Common Good
The good of the whole community is viewed as greater and most important than the sum total of its
parts. Democracy requires citizens who will do more than obeying and following the government.
In a democracy, of course, people will obey the laws and be genuine citizens.
Simultaneously, every citizen is also expected to carry out various social, political, and economic
responsibilities that are essential for the well-being of the society as a whole. Some of the major
responsibilities of citizens in democracy towards achieving the common good include defending
national security, maintaining domestic peace, stand for the rights of others, standing for truth, and
keeping confidentiality of states secret.
C. Responsibility
Responsibility is the duty or obligation of a person or a group to do something. Responsibility is
also the duty or obligation of a person or a group not do some thing. The combined effect of
competence and responsibility brings about a responsible citizen. Responsible citizenship means
that all individuals must be aware of the importance of their membership in a large community. It
is also understood that individuals are being responsible when they are prepared to look after
themselves. Hard work and independence are essential qualities. Responsible citizens create a
strong society by using their own skills and abilities in productive ways.
Furthermore, responsibility embraces the notion that individuals should be submissive/ obedient to
those who have authority in society. In other words, individuals should be prepared to follow rules
and regulations with out violating their personal freedoms. Citizens should also participate actively
in society’s decision making. People should figure out how governments work and know how to
influence others and make effective choices for themselves.
In a democratic society participating in communal activities or public affair that for the betterment
of all is one of the major obligations of citizens. The common good requires that citizens take
responsibility and have the motivation to promote the welfare of the society, to work together with
other members for the benefit of all.

42
Responsibilities come from different sources. As an active and competent citizen of your country,
you are expected to fulfill certain responsibilities by the law. We develop sense of responsibility in
conformity with our jobs, our community, our upbringing, or our culture. Some responsibilities
may come from only one source, and others from two or more sources. Some responsibilities are
chosen while others are imposed. Some of the crucial sources of responsibilities are promises,
appointment, assignment, occupation, custom, citizenship, law, moral principles, etc.
Elements / Requirements for Responsible Citizen
Competent and responsible people can make a difference in their community’s walk of life.
Acceptance of social obligations to serve the welfare of one’s community and society is necessary
to promote the common good of all members. Responsible citizen are willing to help others and
even put the needs of other before their own needs. They subordinate their personal interest to
community interest. Consequently, they find a way to take action to make life better for all.
To be a responsible citizen, one must meet two basic requirements. First, one must care, second,
one must act. There are certain traits of character that each individual needs to fulfill his/her
responsibilities to himself/herself, and his/her family, community and society. These characters not
only help the individual to become an effective person in all but also responsible citizens are who
contributes to the improvement of the society. The most pertinent ones are civil disposition and
civil commitment. Civil disposition refers to habits or characters of citizens that are conducive or
helpful to the healthy functioning and common good of a democratic system. It includes all the
behaviors and actions that are good. It refers to the behaviors that are and desirable and acceptable.
Civil commitment on the other hand is an active participation of citizens for the private as well as
the common good in a democracy. It is the expressed devotion of citizens for the implementation
of the fundamental principles of democracy.
D. Industriousness
The word industriousness is derived from the word “industry”, which means the quality of
regularly working hard. A person having the characteristics of working hard is said to be
industrious. Industriousness therefore, is a concept related with developing the habit of working
hard.
Work ethics refers to the generally accepted guidelines for right or wrong behaviors in work place.
Work ethics involves several principles related to effective work habits and personal qualities.
People learn effective work habits and practices in family, in school, and in community. Good
work habits are vital to any successful career. Education and skill may secure you a job, but your
day-to-day performance determines what you will achieve in the long run. Some of the important

43
work habits that apply to employee everywhere are: punctuality, honesty, willingness to learn,
initiative, loyalty, maximizing productivity and so on.
E. Self-reliance
Self- reliance is a trust on one self. A person who relies or depends on himself /herself is an
independent person. Another name for self-reliance is independent. Both concepts mean the ability
to be self-sufficient to care for one’s own self. Self-reliant people help themselves. They do
whatever they can for themselves. They need help from others only in matters that are beyond their
capacities. Being independent embraces attaining emotional, social, and economic independence.
Emotional independence involves becoming self-reliant with the knowledge that “I am put
together well enough emotionally that I can fend for my self, but I am willing to share my feelings
with other”. Social independence involves becoming self-directed rather than other-directed.
Becoming socially independent does not mean becoming selfish. Socially independent people
rather realize that their best interests are served by becoming involved in political, civic,
educational, religions, social and community affairs.
Economic independence embodies earning sufficient money to meet one’s financial needs. It also
involves learning to limit desires and wants to one’s ability to pay.
F. Active Community Participation
Active community participation concerns both the rights and responsibilities citizens have to
participate in the public or civic life. The role each responsible and competent citizen should play
in the political, social, and economic affairs of his/her community and the nation at large is also
known as civic participation.
Civic participation includes taking part in the governance of social and political groups such as
schools, labor unions, religions and other associations. Each citizen should develop the skills
required for effective participation in the governance of any group to which she/he belongs. This
includes participation in the political processes of government at kebele, woreda, regional and
national state level.
Democracy depends on the informed and effective participation of citizens. Citizens should realize
that their will, knowledge and energy are needed for the protection of the common good. There are
two ways to approach problems that affect the life of any society. One is through social action
while the other is through political action.
If citizens want their views to be considered, they must become active participants in the political
process at all levels. To this end, voting and campaigns are important areas that require active
participation. Social participation could be defined as taking part in the public life of your
community or society. Social or civic participation is concerned with citizen’s responsibilities to
44
take part in the promotion of the common good. The common good can mainly be achieved by
engaging oneself in various forms of co-operative and volunteering activities.

UNIT FOUR

CONSTITUTION AND CONSTITUTIONALISM

1. INTRODUCTION
This unit as part of the course mainly emphasizes on discussing the issues of
constitutions and constitutionalism. The whatness of constitution, its purpose
and function will be dealt at the beginning of the unit. Apart from this the main
focus of the unit will be on the analysis and study of the Ethiopian constitutional
history and development.
Accordingly the dynamics of constitutional development in Ethiopia, and the
changes and continuities of these constitutions in terms of the political,
economic and social matters they raised will be the basic case in point under
this unit.
This will enable students to know the dominant political matters, the political
intensions, aspirations and above all the political history of their country at
different junctures of the establishment of these constitutions from the earlier
past to the present.
2. A Constitution and its Purpose or Function
In any political system the basic justification behind establishing constitution is
the need to limit the power of both the government and the people. These bodies
have certain rights and power, but there activity must also be limited to keep
them from encroaching on the rights of others. Such rules that specify duties
and rights of government and the people are to be provided by statutes,
traditional customary rules and national constitutions.
Accordingly the word constitution is commonly used in two different senses. It
may be generally understood as the whole system of government of a country,
the collection of rules that establish, regulate or govern the government. But
such rules are partly legal and party non-legal. Legal rules are those rules that
are codified in a documented form and are acknowledged by the courts, where as
non-legal or extra-legal rules that take the form of usages, understanding,

45
 customs or conventions which courts do not recognize as law but equally
effective in regulating governments as legal rules.
Based on this we can define a constitution in two ways. If we think of a
constitution as a written document that sets forth the fundamental rules by
which a society is governed then we are employing narrower definition. Broadly
defined a constitution is that sets of rules written or unwritten, legally
established or extra legal by which governments conduct their affair.
States design constitution in order it to be the supreme and fundamental law of
the land, which cannot easily be amended or revised like ordinary laws. In
relation to this a constitution is also a very general rule document that may
discuss some very important legal principles. This implies a constitution must be
detailed and specified by some other ordinary laws, so that it can have
applicability in the day-to-day life of the society.
For more understanding let us see two definitions,
A constitution can be defined as a fundamental law written or unwritten, that
establishes the basic characters tics of both the society and government. This is
basically achieved by defining basic principles to which the society must conform
and describing the organization of the government. It also poses regulation,
distribution limitations and the extent of exercise of power over government
departments.
A constitution can also be viewed as;
A national symbol; it embodies the basic understanding of a people on certain
fundamental political issues and therefore reflects the characteristics of the
people themselves. In addition to this constitutions have some basic purpose
and function to serve, some of these include:
 One basic purpose of constitutions is to define the political structure of a state
and determine the distribution of government powers.
 It establishes different branches of government and specifies who does what by
setting limit to their power. By this it establishes certain fixed principles about
government operation.
 It serves as a supreme law of the state and even as a national symbol of the
state, where by every body and every other law operate under the constitution.

46
 It also sets up general rules about the duties and rights of citizens and
guarantees their Welfare/safety prosperity, health and happiness.
 It also determines a countries system of government to be presidential,
parliamentary republican or monarchical.
 It establishes legitimacy of government in newly established states.
 It also reflects the values, ideas and goals that seem to express best the spirit of
the national political culture.
2.1. Methods of Classifying Constitutions.
Methods of classifying Constitutions are of various types and we can employ these varieties for
different situations. Accordingly we can classify Constitutions based on their forms. This pertains
to whether a constitution is a written or unwritten type. The amendment procedures stated in
constitutions is also another method of classifying constitutions. Hence there are constitutions with
rigid and flexible amendment procedures. The further mode of selecting constitutions is based on
the kind of state structure made by the Constitution. In this regard it can be divide federal or
unitary mode of constitution.
Constitutions

Forms of Constitution Amendment Procedure

Written Unwritten Rigid

Flexible

State Structure

Federal Unitary

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Written Constitutions:
Constitutions: Majority of states of the world today has a written constitution. That is,
they have an assemblage of a single document, which, they call a constitution as fundamental law
of their state.
Unwritten Constitutions: There are very few countries who are referred to have unwritten form
of constitution. E.g.-the British and Israel. In such nations there is no one compiled document
called a constitution. They may have dispersed legal documents, which serve as constitution. But
most of the fundamental rules of the political system of such nations are in unwritten form. This
may take a form of customs, understanding, precedents, conventions etc…
However, those nations who claim that they have a written form of constitution
is, giving a narrower definition to constitutions. This is because we cannot
compile all rules governing a political system in to a document called a
constitution. Rules governing a political system may have extra legal character in
unwritten form likes customs, precedents, common under endings…
Accordingly no political system can have all the governing principle in a
documented form. By the same token all such legal principles cannot also be in
unwritten form. In the British case, even if the fundamental governing principles
are in unwritten form it still has written legal documents that cause some effect
to the system. Generally, we cannot have a totally written and absolutely
unwritten constitution as far as the reality is concerned.
Based on their provision of amendment procedure constitutions can be classified
as Rigid and flexible.
Rigid Constitutions: are those constitutions which set-up complex and special
amendment procedure, which makes changing an article from the constitution
very difficult. This also reduces the adaptability of the constitution to a new
situation.
Flexible constitutions: set up simple amendment procedure and there are as
such no special required procedures for amendment.
The British is an example of the flexible constitution where as countries like
USA, Australia, Denmark and Switzerland are mentioned to have rigid
constitution. However this classification may also not absolutely be used.
Because, in reality those constitutions with rigid Amendment procedures have
been seen frequently amending themselves than those with flexible procedures.

48
It depends up on the socio economic and political interests of the ruling elites
within a state.
It is constitutions that distribute power among the different unit of a state. But
the model that is followed by constitutions in distributing state power differs
from each other. Some constitutions purely classify and decentralize power
between the central government and regional/local units
and such constitutions are referred as federal constitutions. Some other
centralized state power in the hands of the central government, hence unitary
constitutions.
3. Constitutional Experience of selected Countries (the case of USA and
British)
The US and the British have different forms of constitutions. The British are
obviously known for having unwritten constitution, where as the US has a
famous written constitution.
The reality with regard to the British legal history is that, they have no an
assemblage of document called a constitution. One justification related with this
situation is that, in Britain most historical phenomena, which would have
caused promulgation of constitution, were turned unsuccessful and resolved
through other means of compromise, than causing constitution. This analysis
emanated itself from the theoretical establishment that constitutions are results
of basic social contradiction. Such theory emphasizes that after societies went
through serious social and political conflict they used to establish constitution
as a means of compromise and starting life a new and a fresh. But in Britain
such historical incidents that might have caused the promulgation of a written
constitution had not reached to that stage.
But this does not necessarily mean that the British has no written aspect of a
constitution. Most legal documents has taken the form of evolutionary
transformation and development in the form of addressing specific problems
arose in some specific moments, than adopting a document called constitution
all of a sudden.
There fore we can list out such dispersed documents, which were written on
some specific issues, to address some specific problems of their time. These
include the Magna carat (great charter) of 1215 (to limit the power of the king).
49
The petition of right (1628) The bill of rights of 1689, the people representation
act of 1832, the women franchise act of 1928(to allow women to vote), the acts of
union (1707 and 1800) when the British were united with Scotland and Ireland
respectively. And so on.
These documents represent the written aspect of the British constitution. These
cannot fulfill the criteria of being constitution because they are dispersed legal
documents which do not reflect the basic political elements of the system. The
vital elements of the system rather are represented more in the form of customs,
beliefs, understandings, conventions and precedents. So the reason why the
British constitution is termed as unwritten is because the determinant political
principles of the state took the form of extra legal customary rules than a clearly
stated document. Hence the unwritten aspect dominates the written aspect of
the constitution.
Unlike the British, who is geared towards peaceful transformation the US
constitution is the result of one big historical contradiction. That was the US
Independence struggle against the British colonialists. Today’s US was once the
colony of British and their successful struggle for independence reached to its
conclusive stage by promulgating constitution for the US.
The British classified their big colony in to 13 colonial states. Each colony has
executive and legislative authority. The executive (appointed by the British) was
highly affiliated to the British and protects their interest than the people in the
states.
The legislature was a relatively independent organ which enjoys a considerable
level of autonomy from the British. So it was more favored by the people in the
colonies, for it stood for their interest.
But based on the decision of King George III of England in the mid 18 th C the
power of the relatively independent parliament was obliterated. Following this
the king imposed too much tax over the people in the colonies to finance its war
in India and France. Previously the powerful legislature can repeal such tax
decisions but now it is not the case.
As the result the people felt that they were not well represented by the
parliament but required paying too much tax. This gave rise to the famous
slogan ‘’No taxation with out representation’’
50
This lack of representation in decision-making on matters that affect their life
discontented the people and led them to fight against the British. Finally they
managed to achieve their full independence in 1883.
Those who fought for independence and the founders of the American state drew
two basic experiences from the previous colonial administration in their effort to
formulate constitution for US.
1. They were aspiring for strong regional Governments than central government.
This is based on the idea that a powerful national government as seen in the
time of the colony is distrustful.
2. Because of also the distrust that they have over powerful executive, under
the colony, they opted for strong legislative. Based on these preferences the
states established the articles of the confederation (the first us constitution),
which was drafted in 1777, ratified in 1781 and served until 1787.
But later it was realized that articles of the confederation does not address the
problem of the states and even caused problems. Because of the institution of a
very weak central government such destructive deficiencies as lack of uniform
tax regulation and economic policy, lack of central organ to regulate inter-state
economic relation and their relation with other countries, absence of uniform
tariff policy etc…were occurred.
These and other problems showed that the articles of the confederation must be
reformulated. The states recognized the problem and decided to work hard to
wards it. Finally the convention which was held at Philadelphia in 1787 quickly
became the forum for drafting a new constitution for the US leaving the article of
the confederation aside. This constitution was adopted in 1789 and it is the
working constitution of US still to day.
4. Constitutional Experience of Ethiopia
4.1. The pre 1931 and the 1931 Ethiopian constitution
In spite of its long history of state survival Ethiopia has a very little experience
with a written constitution. It was only in 1931 that Ethiopia promulgated its
first written form of constitution. But before that the state has a far back
constitutional history of unwritten form. Such lack of written constitution does
not necessarily implicate the total absence of constitutional rules and principles
in the legal history of the country.
51
Absolute monarchs, whose power and control was extended to every affairs of
the state, have dominated Ethiopian politics in this period of unwritten
constitution. The territory of the state in this period was also a function of the
expanding capability of the monarchs to the outlying territories of what is called
Ethiopia today. Indeed the state was maintained and came to its present form by
the means of power and conquest. The state has always been peaked by the
monarch and has a unitary structure. The ultimate source of legitimacy for this
all authority of the monarchs was force and religion.
It is in the surrounding of such political atmosphere that, Ethiopia was said to
have a long history of unwritten constitution. The constitutional principles in
this period was also the reflections of such political set ups.
The country is known to have traditional constitutionally relevant documents
and customary practices as a representation of its pre 1931 constitutional
history.Among others the Fetha Negest, kibre Negest and the ser’ate mengist are
known to be traditional documents of constitutionally relevant in nature. The
Fetha Negest was a religions and secular legal provision than being a definite
constitution.
The kibre Negest was the most important traditional document that even defined
who should become king in Ethiopia i.e., succession of the throne in Ethiopia.
This document takes the Ethiopian history back to the Solomonic dynasty,
where the queen of Sheba made romantic tripe to King Solomon and gave birth
to the first Ethiopia king Menelik. Based on this the document determined that
any king in Ethiopia must descend from the Solomonic dynasty or must have
such blood relationship with the dynasty. This principle served as a source of
legitimacy for almost all kings in Ethiopia.
The ser’ate Mengist of the nineteenth century also provided certain
administrative protocol and directives useful to the constitutional process.
There were also some customary traditional principles that represent
constitutional ideas. For instance the fidelity of the monarch to the church was
written no where but the king showed strong affiliation to the doctrines of the
Ethiopian Orthodox Church. The principle of Imperial omnipotence was also a
result of common understanding in the polity that the king is the most powerful
person in the state, which defined the ultimate authority of the state. The
52
Imperial court system which asserts that the king is the final court of appeal
who gives irreversible decision is also another traditional principle that has
constitutional relevance.
The unwritten era of the constitution came to its end in 1931 with the
promulgation of the first written constitution. Both internal and external factors
believed to cause the promulgation of the constitution at that specific time. The
emperor’s aspiration to view Ethiopia as a modern state to the rest of the world
was the external motivating factor. Establishing modern system and structure of
government by the constitution did this. Ethiopia was in need of reflecting a
different picture of its own to the rest of the world, that it is no more a back ward
state. In addition to this the emperor also has a deep interest of centralizing
state power in the internal politics of the country. This was effectively done by
absolutist nature of the constitution.
Even if the external dream of the constitution was short of its target, the
constitution is said to be very successful in achieving its internal goal. It has
become one of the most successful attempts ever in Ethiopia, in centralizing
state power. All modern Ethiopian rulers attempted to do this but Haile Sellassie
turned glorious in doing so. The constitution formalized centralization of state
power by employing its own mechanism.
Centralization of state power was basically effected through the creation of new
administrative units headed by appointed chiefs. This reduced the power of
regional nobles, who were previously so powerful locally but now their power is
transferred to the monarch indirectly through the appointed local chiefs by the
means of the constitution. The establishment of standing army and the setting
up of a ministerial framework were some other steps in centralizing state power.
In the later case appointed ministries were decided to be directly accountable to
the king. This enabled the king to have a control over the executive.
As the result of such high centralization of power and upgrading of the
absolutist nature of the monarch, the constitution was said to be, a little more
than an instrument of legalizing the absolute power of him. Apart from such
basic facts the constitution introduced some very important innovations to the
Ethiopian political history.

53
In relation to this the constitution established a bicameral parliament of the
upper and the lower house. The upper house was stronger than the lower and its
members are to be handpicked and appointed by the monarch from among the
most important part of the nobility. The lower house is later to be appointed by
the members of the upper house. The primary function of these houses was to
play an advisory role to the monarch than making and approving laws. These
chambers can neither propose policy nor oppose a policy proposed by the
emperor. They cannot also challenge the executive without the permission of the
emperor. As a result the chambers are considered mainly as the first attempt of
parliaments in Ethiopia and served as Communication Bridge between the
government and the people than making laws.
As a further means of centralizing state power the constitution also
institutionalized the ministerial system and made all the ministries directly
accountable to the monarch, thorough Individual and collective ministerial
responsibility. This made easier for him to control the executive.
In the judicial branch the constitution structured two court systems as ordinary
courts and administrative tribunals. At the apex of the court system was the
emperor’s chilot.
From these all facts we can say that the constitution was used as a fertile
ground to get the Emperors centralizing project finished. Apparently it was
served as a means of providing legal green light for the undisputed absolute
power of the king. This was testified by the fact that all branches of governments
are under the direct scrutiny of the king.
4.2 The Revised constitution of 1955
After quarter of a century the revision of 1931 constitution and its replacement
by another constitution was found vital. There were constellations of events that
led to the urgency of revising the 1931 constitution.
One important event that took place and effected socio economic transformation
in the country was Italian occupation over Ethiopia. This event increased the
country’s access to the outside world and caused slight diffusion of western
ideas in to the mind of the people. Further more Italian built infrastructure
facilitated communication between parts of the state. These are among the
factors that caused some form of transformation in the Ethiopian polity. These
54
transformations served as only secondary factors for the reformulation of the
constitution.
The most important and top urgent factor that purely necessitated a hand in
hand revision of the constitution was the Eritrea federation with Ethiopia in
1952
Before 1952 Eritrea was under the colonial rule of Italy beginning from 1889. It
was the defeat of the Italian forces in the Second World War that brought the
Eritrean issue in to attention. After it has been controlled by the British between
1942-1952 Eritrea finally decided, by the UN resolution, to unite with Ethiopia
through federation.
This federation led to the incorporation of two other documents in to the
Ethiopia legal system. These were the federal act and the Eritrean constitution.
The federal act was a document that specified the terms of agreements for the
federation between Eritrea and Ethiopia. In addition Eritrean established their
own constitution with the support of UN.
Both documents were far modern and better than the existing traditional 1931
Ethiopian constitution. They incorporated progressive political elements like
democracy and human right, which were unimagined in the 1931 constitution.
It was under such exigencies that the introduction of modern and progressive
elements was necessitated and the 1931 constitution was revised. Accordingly
the revised 1955 constitution showed a significant departure from the previous
one. For instance it has given a textual recognition for the rights and liberties of
citizens even if it was short of practice.
Liberal individual rights such as the right to vote on the basis of universal adult
suffrage was also introduced to elect the chamber of deputies of the parliament.
The basic principle of constitutionalism and supremacy of the constitution was
postulated under the constitution. It has subsumed all other rules, laws,
decisions and acts below the constitution and required conformity to it.
Although these provisions were first hand attempts to the progressive
advancement of the political and legal structure of the state at the end the
constitution had reaffirmed the legitimatization of absolute power of the king in a
unitarily structured state. It would be convincing to list some of the power and
prerogatives of the Emperor under the constitution.
55
 With regard to the parliament:
 The Emperor had the power to appoint the members of the senate (the upper
chamber Parliament)
 He had the power to dissolve the more active lower chamber parliament.
 He can veto legal proposal suggested by the parliament but he has the power to
decree Laws when the parliament is not in session.
In the executive,
 He was empowered to create government agencies and determine their functions
 He was commander in chief of the armed forces
 He has supreme power to determine on foreign policy issues
 He can determine on the church decrees and even appointment of the abun
except on Doctrinal issues.
Given these facts the centralization scheme of the 1931 constitution was under
strict continuation and the king remained to be the absolute power within the state.
4.3 The 1987 constitution of the people’s Democratic Republic of
Ethiopia.
Before the birth of the PDRE constitution a number of historical events took
place within the state. The preceding two monarchical constitutions were failed
to address some of the basic contradictions of the polity like religious and ethnic
diversity. More over societal transformation in terms of out look, thinking
education and relative modernization was not accompanied with a proportionate
alteration in terms of administrative and political set-ups. Measured by this yard
stick the monarchical system was lagging far behind and surprisingly it was not
even prepared for change.
The cumulative effect of this was the fermentation of revolutionary forces, which
were anti-thesis of the status quo by the monarchical system. In the mid 1960
and early 1970 such forces were staging opposition plots against the old system.
This process which was ignited by the Ethiopian student movement around
socialist ideology, culminated in deposing the old traditional system from power
once and for all.
The long march of traditional feudal system came to its end by the 1974
Ethiopian revolution .The state power after the collapse of the monarchy was

56
 assumed by the military Derg regime. The provisional military administrative
council (PMAC) has now become in charge of the state.
Immediately after coming to power the Derg issued proclamation number
1/1974. The proclamation addressed some basic issues, which were mainly
geared towards outlawing the traditional system and its institutions.
 It suspended the 1955-revised constitution
 Dissolved the two chamber parliaments
 Legally suspended the Emperor from power and established the military
government (The Provisional Military Administrative Council)
This proclamation cannot be given a constitutional status because it does not
touch basic constitutional issues other than deposing the Emperor from power.
This may lead us to the conclusion that between 1974-1987 was a period of
constitutional vacuum in Ethiopia.
The PDRE constitution which was said to be adopted after a nation wide public
discussion at the grass root level evaluated to mainly reflect socialist ethos and
principles, giving highest premium to the unity and national integrity of Ethiopia
under the motto “Ethiopia Tekidem’’.
The constitution is known for its fundamental departure in terms of issue and
ideology from the preceding two. The preamble itself talks about the sovereignty
of the working people and that Ethiopia is a multi-national state and the right of
these diverse nationalities must be respected equally.
As a continuation of the preamble the constitution under Art (2) approved the
equality of all nationalities and the equal consideration of their culture,
language, history. It was also stated that effort would be underway to reduce
regional economic disparity. In relation to this, the constitution established a
unitary state with administrative and autonomous regions, provided that
autonomous regions would be provided more independent power and authority
from the central government than the administrative regions. Accordingly Tigray,
Eritrea, Assab, Dire Dawa and Ogaden autonomous regions were established
and another 28 administrative regions were also the cases.
The constitution also approved that ultimate power (popular sovereignty) resides
in the working people. The assembly of the National Shengo determined to be a

57
means of expression of their will. This Shengo was given the ultimate political
power in the state, which can supremely decide on most important issues.
Parallel to this legislative organ, the council of the state (a very strong executive
organ headed by the president) was also established. But the constitution
conferred most power of the state on the president. He was the head of the state,
the council of the state, the Shengo and the armed forces. This led to the
suppression of the concept of separation of power. On the judicially side, an
independent judiciary headed by the Supreme Court was the case.
The democratic provision of the constitution focused on democratic centralism,
which is a socialist form of democracy. Such democracy allows only the
existence of a single state party, which centrally controls and guides the politics
of the state. In addition, long lists of rights and freedoms were also stated in the
constitution such rights as freedom of speech, opinion, expression, assembly,
religion… were provided under the frame work of democratic centralism.
All in all the deep scrutiny in to the constitution testifies that the state is strictly
unitary type where there is high centralization of power in the hands of executive
as dominated by the president of the state. In addition giving too much emphasis
to national unity and emotional indignity of the state, most part of the
constitution has also centrally focused on basic principles of socialism. This
unitary socialist state by the constitution gave a very little concern for human
right and ethnic self-assertion, and no concern for federalism.
4.4. The Transitional Charter of 1991

The transitional charter was promulgated shortly after the fall of the government of the PDRE in
1991. It served as the law of the land for the transitional period. The fall of the Dreg regime was
contributed by bundles of factors. But basically the oppressive end suppressive rule followed by
the regime is of significant contribution.

The regime was in lack of the political will to address the different problems existing within the
state especially its resorting towards sheer use of force to solve the nationalities problem was
devastating both for the state and later the regime itself. It was at war in different fronts. The EPLF
was fighting for the independence of Eritrea. TPLF was another armed struggle in the northern
Front and OLF was launching attack from the southern Front. There were also other situations that
put the regime in to a precarious situation like heavy burden of military expenditure, continuing
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famine, war, destruction economic mismanagement and wide spread corruption ruined the
economy and the life of the people.

This in effect reduced the regimes legitimacy. Externally the previous socialist states that were
feeding the regime with military hard wares and economic aid are now begun to follow in ward
looking foreign policy that led to the end of the cold war, the era of ideological conflict between
the socialist and capitalist blocs. This led the regime to serious lack of legitimacy internally and
external political bankruptcy. The cumulative effect of these all factors is the collapse of the
regime.

In May 1991 EPRDF took control of state power and in July 1991 it has called up on a conference
on peace and Democracy. On this conference various political parties were invited (ethnic based
parties) that reflect and represent the specific interest of their ethnic groups. These parties ranges
from those parties that made much contribution to the fall of the previous regime through armed
struggle to parties established for the purpose of representation after the war.

Basically when these parties came to the conference there is a consensus that coalition 0f
democratic forces must establish a transitional Government. This government must take such
responsibilities as facilitating the drafting and adoption of a new constitution and preparing a
ground for national election.

At the conference on peace and democracy participating parties agreed to establish the transitional
council of representatives and transitional government drawn from the council in proportion to the
parties represented there .The conference was culminated in adopting a charter that for the duration
of transitional period was to serve as the law of the land. The charter has its own peculiar
contributions and marked another discontinuity in the constitutional development in Ethiopia. It
was a very short document that addressed only some fundamental issues. The preamble stated that
“it is the starting of a new chapter in the Ethiopian history in which freedom, equal right and self
determination of all nationalities shall be the governing principle of economic, political and social
life.

The charter puts a high premium on human rights. On its article (1) it stated that such rights will
be practiced on the basis of UDHR and individual human rights are respected fully and without
any limitation what so ever. Specific emphasis was also given on freedom of concise, expression,
association, assembly, demonstration and the right to organize political parties, if such acts do not
infringe up on other’s right.
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Article (2) is mainly devoted to recognizing rights of nationalities and peoples of Ethiopia,
Accordingly nationalities were allowed to administer themselves in their own jurisdiction and to be
fairly represented at the level of federal Government. It was also approved that all nationalities can
promote their language, history, culture and preserve their identity. If the above-mentioned rights
are not respected they can ask independence from the Ethiopia state.

Even if the charter acknowledged the right of nationalities to administer themselves, it has said
nothing about the establishment of federal structure for Ethiopia. But the inclusion of such right
implied the envisaged structure to be a federal type.

The charter has further provision on the establishment of a transitional government of Ethiopia.
This government was decided to consist of the council of representatives (the legislative organ),
the council of ministries (executive) and an independent judiciary. The council of representatives
is constituted in such a way that those parties who were invited to the conference on peace and
democracy were given the same number of seats in the council, which made the council to be the
replica of the participants in the conference

The council of ministries was elected from within the members of the council of representatives.
The procedure followed was that the council nominated and elected the president of the state, who
further nominates the PM and the PM again nominates the minis tries. Each nomination is subject
to approval by the council of representatives. The power and authority of the legislative was
outlined on Art - 9 of the charter, where as such definition of power was not the case to the
executive and judicial organs.

One basic and most important responsibility given to the transitional government is to prepare the
state to full democracy. As part of this effort the council of rep preservatives was mandated to the
making up of a new constitution to the state. The council accordingly established a constitutional
commission i.e. a body that drafts a new constitution to the state.

The draft constitution prepared by the constitutional commission decided to be presented for
discussion to the council of representatives. But the council was not provided with the final
power of approval (only discuss and forward). The adoption of the constitution required the
formation of an organ called the constituent assembly

The constituent assembly was formed after a separate election made by the public in June 1994.
This organ had 557 members who are elected by the people and it has only one function and that is

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to discuss on the drafted constitution and adopt it. In the end the constituent assembly met for two
months and it has introduced only few changes to the draft constitution. On 9 December 1995 the
constituent assembly approved the draft constitution for warded to it by the council of
representatives.

The charter was a very brief and compact document that contains only 20 articles. So it was too
brief to elaborate on some constitutional principles. As the result some very important
constitutional principles like determining the structural arrangement of the state, clearly defining
the power and authorities of the PM and the ministries were not done by this document.

To fill this gap the charter must have been supported by other legal proclamations, that give some
more elaborations on some issues that the charter gave less attention As part of this effort proc -
No – 1-1991 defined the powers and functions of the President and another proclamation No 2-
1991 specified the power and function of the prime minister and the council of ministers

The main task of politically structuring the state on the basis of decentralization was later effected
through proclamation No 7 /1992, which is known as National Regional self Government
proclamation. This proclamation laid down the basis for the self-administration scheme of the
various Nationalities in Ethiopia. The proclamation identified some 63 Nations Nationalities and
peoples, on the basis of which 14 Regional self government administrations was established. Out
of these total regions only 4 were having one dominant ethnic group, which made the self-
government plan difficult

In any case 48 nations’ nationalities and peoples were allowed to establish their self administration
at the woreda level and above, where as the rest of the Nationalities referred as minority
Nationalities were mentioned to be represented at the woreda council of their proximity.

The proclamation has also done the task of center regional power sharing between the central and
regional governments. The document stated that the national regional governments are
subordinated to the transitional central government. The power sharing formula dictates that except
for some specifically enumerated powers to the central governments all the rest powers would be
left to the regional administration. Accordingly except for some exclusive matters that are left to
central government because of their nature as defining economic policy, printing of money, foreign
policy, administering statewide projects, communication network… all other powers is to be given
to the regional governments. Executive, legislative and judiciary power was also guaranteed for the
regions to enable them exercise their power.
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Generally speaking the transitional charter has not mentioned about federal structure and the
transitional government is not a full-fledged federal type. But the provisions on the proclamation
envisages establishment of ethnic based federalism for the future, which really was the case under
the 1995 Ethiopian constitution.

4.5 The 1995 FDRE Constitution

The approval (adoption) of the FDRE constitution on 8 December 1994 marked the end of the era
of the transitional charter. The responsible organ for the discussion and adoption of this
constitution was the constituent assembly. This organ was formed after a separate election held on
5 June 1994. Candidates were competing for the total of 557 seats in the assembly out of which
539 was won by EPRDF and its alliances.

The constituent assembly convened for the approval process beginning from 28 October 1994. The
assembly met for two month. It has established committees of different types to deal with various
constitutional issues as government structure, the economy including revenues source, legal
issues and the issues of human rights. For some specific issues that need special professional
consultancy experts were invited to give their view and opinion. At the end of these all processes
the assembly adopted the constitution with only few changes after it was handed to it by the
constitutional commission, a body which was responsible for the preparation of the draft
constitution.

Measured by some criteria’s the 1995 FDRE constitution has shown a significant departure from
the past. The state structure, which it has established, the system of government and the human
right provisions are some that should be mentioned. As compared with previous constitutions of
the country that kept themselves busy of centralizing state power.

The constitution pioneered federal state structure on ethnic lines. This was unprecedented in the
history of the country. The necessity of such state structure was justified by EPRDF as a means of
reflecting the nationalities demand to self administration and autonomous arrangement. Such
demand previously was suppressed by the centralizing effect of authoritarian governments, who
were the makers and breakers of the state.
The human Rights provision on the constitution was also another departure
from the past; in terms of the attention it was provided. Almost 1/3 of the
constitutional provision was dedicated to the discussion of human tights and
fundamental freedoms in accordance with the UDHR. In addition to this all
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federal and state government organs were also given the responsibility to do their
level best towards the respecting of these rights. To reduce frequent diluting of
the provisions on human rights extra stringent amendment procedure was
introduced as a method of protecting it. Above all the House of peoples
representatives was also allowed to establish “state of emergency board’’ when it
declares state of emergency. This body is given the power to asses and report
whether in human treatments were committed under state of emergency and
recommending to the prime minister and the council of ministries to take
corrective measures incase such things were committed. These all provisions
showed the emphasis given to the provisions of human rights and fundamental
freedoms.

The text of the constitution in its further provisions gave birth to the two house parliaments .These
Houses are the house of peoples Representatives and the house of the federation. These two houses
were provided with their own power and responsibility. The independent authorities of the regional
governments were again proved when the constitution gave legislative, executive and judicial
authority to them. So the state governments are allowed to have their own Regional councils. The
independence of judiciary and the court system was a clear case point in the constitution together
with the appealing system.

The constitution further stipulated five basic principles as guiding points for the whole other
provisions of the constitution.

These and others were some of the most important contributions of the constitution, which we are
going to discuss case by case in the coming parts of this Module.

4.5.1. The basic principles of the constitution

The fundamental principles as stated in the constitution laid down the basis for analyzing the
whole constitution. The document is well understood when it is seen in light of its basic principles.
These basic rules were also meant to back the specific provisions addressing specific issues in the
constitution, by stating frame work of understanding and interpretation.

The basic principles are enshrined around some core issues as sovereignty of the people,
constitutionalism and constitutional supremacy, human rights secularism and transparency and
accountability of government.
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 A. Popular Sovereignty

Historical assessment of previous constitutional experiences shows that most previous

constitutions were not dared to incorporate such provisions. This Provision cannot be even
imagined in the 1931 and the revised 1955 constitution. For instance 1955 constitution asserted
that the Ethiopian territory is sovereign and inalienable and the sovereign authority is absolutely
reserved for the Emperor. A rather better approach to the issue under discussion was reflected by
the PDRE constitution when it provided that ‘‘all sovereign power resides in the hands of the
working people of Ethiopia.’’

In the FDRE constitution the issue was provided in a direct forward manner that, on Art 8 it has
stated ‘‘All sovereign power resides in the nations, nationalities and peoples of Ethiopia and the
constitution is an expression of their sovereignty”. It was more discussed that this sovereign power
can be exercised either directly by their direct participation or indirectly through electing their
representative.

The provision implied that there are nations, nationalities and peoples that seek sovereignty in their
own right, which further implied the federal structure for the country The principle of sovereignty
of nations, nationalities and peoples is there fore one of the pillars of the FDRE constitution.
B. Supremacy of the Constitution
Any simple theoretical definition of constitution might raise a point about a
constitution is fundamental law of the state over which no other law can a have
an upper hand or briefly a constitution is the mother of all laws. The same is
true for this constitution. It has established a constitutional state that
subordinates all laws, practices or decisions to the constitution.
Art-9 is a reflection of the fundamental nature of the constitution and its
supremacy over any other law. It clearly stated that any other law, and decision
of government organ and official should conform to the principles of the
constitution or else they will not have legal validity.
The same article specifies the method of holding power in the Ethiopian state.
Any ascension of state power, except as provided in the constitution, is referred
illegitimate. This discarded the traditional way of acquiring legitimacy in the
history of the country through either religion or the instrument of force. So any
government can take up the responsibility to administer the state only through

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the fulfillment of constitutional procedure and after coming to power its
authority will be limited under the frame of the constitution. This was reflection
of an emphasis on the principle of constitutionalism.
C. The respect ion of Human Rights
The third core principle of the constitution was the respect ion of human rights
and fundamental freedom of citizens. On Art 10 the constitution postulated that
human rights are inviolable and inalienable rights and human and democratic
rights shall be respected.
This article as a core principle gave a clue about the further inclusion of this
right in the constitution. Accordingly all provisions in the constitution under
chapter 3 (between article 13-44) are simply extensions and elaborations of this
principle.
D. Secularism
This as a fourth basic constitutional principle relates to the separation of religion
from state. Accordingly the constitution held the position that states does not
interfere in to matters belonging to religion and religion would not interfere in to
the matters of state. This principle as postulated on article 11 enabled the
assurance of religious equality in the Ethiopian state. Nominating one religion as
a state religion would lead to lack of tolerance in a religious diverse state like
Ethiopia. Religious freedom and non-discrimination based on religion is the
reflection of this core principle.
Delineation of activities, which are religious but non-political and political
activities, which are non-religious, is to some extent difficult. The provision In
this case depends on its interpretation. In any case the inclusion of such core
principle is a significant departure in the Ethiopian constitutional history, where
in most case orthodox Christianity was accepted as the state religion except
Ethiopia under the PDRE.
E. Transparency and Accountability of Government
As of this core principle Art-12 defined the relationship of public official of any
kind with the people. It magnified the representative nature of public officials to
the public and they have to work for it. This was expressed in such a way that
’’the conduct of affairs of government shall be transparent’’. It also further
stresses that ‘’ any public official or an elected representative is accountable for
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any failure in official duties.” Even if it decided to be determined by farther
proclamations the constitution ruled that the people could recall its
representative back in case of lack of confidence in him. This principle reflected
and elaborated in the different provisions of the constitution. For instance
accountability of the council of ministries to the House of People’s
Representative, the approval of the council of ministers by the same body, the
mandate given to the HPR to put the federal executive and other federal officials
under its scrutiny and other provisions are the manifestations of this principle.

5. Federalism under the Ethiopian Constitution.

For more than a decade now Ethiopia is declared to be a federal democratic state
structure. It was the 1995 constitution that transferred the country in to a full-
fledged federal structure. The state has begun the process towards federalism
since 1991 with the adoption of the transitional charter, which served as the
constitution of the state up until the promulgation of the current constitution.
The transitional charter as a legal document recognized the rights of nations,
nationalities and peoples to self-administration and even to the extent of
independence. This provision was further materialized by proclamation No-7-
1991, the National Regional self Government proclamation, that laid down the
frame work for the establishment of 14 Regional governments and a central
government.

The full acknowledgement that Ethiopia is a federal Democratic Republic, under

Article1 of the current Ethiopia constitution, is only a culmination of the process
of decentralization that was taking place since 1991.
Ethiopia has been a country that for almost a century experienced a highly
centralized unitary state structure; irrespective of the diverse multiethnic groups
that existed within the state. Owing to such past history the kind of federalism
that Ethiopia introduced is devolutionary (dispersing a highly centralized power)
than aggregative. This shows that, the state is with a very little or no experience
of federal arrangements. Federalism as a concept is mentioned only once in the
history of the country when Eritrea (through the decision of UN) was federated

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with Ethiopia. It was not even initiated from within internal politics; rather it
was the result of international agreements and compromise.
It is the same country with the mentioned historical past that transferred itself
in to a full-fledged federal structure in 1995.
The constitution after declaring that Ethiopia shall be known as a federal
democratic republic used some of its provisions to elaborate the peculiar mode of
federalism that Ethiopia followed.
The constitution postulated that the constituent parts of the Ethiopian federal
structure would be the states or regional governments. One of the most peculiar
characteristics of the Ethiopian federalism is the ethnic criterion that it has
followed in arranging and structuring the states. The provision on Article 39 had
made it clear by stating that “Every Ethiopian Nation, Nationality and people has
an unconditional right to self determination’’ and on the same article on another
sub-provision it was stated that “Every Nation Nationality and People has the
right to a full measure of self government…’’This has clearly manifested that the
federal arrangement is based on ethnic consideration.
Article (46) further discussed that the state shall be delimited on the basis of
settlement pattern, language, identity and consent of the people concerned.
Basing itself up on these and other provisions the constitution established 9 self
–governing autonomous regional states as sub-national entities that constitute
the Ethiopian federation.
The states include the state of Tigray, Afar, Amhara, Oromia, Somalia,
Benishangul/Gumuz, the SNNRP, Gambella and Harari. At the adoption of the
constitution Addis Ababa’s status as a state ceased to exist and it become the
locus of central government.
Although the federal boundaries are delimited based on ethnic criteria, most
regional states have heterogeneous ethnic composition. States like Oromia,
Tigray, Amhara have dominant ethnic groups (in terms of population) that
constitute majority proportion of the society. States like SNNRP are with a very
much diverse ethnic composition. This even made some people to nominate this
region as’’ federation with in federation’’.
Because of the heterogeneous settlement of ethnic groups in some Regions like
the SNNPR it turned very complex and difficult to establish Regional
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arrangement for all ethnic groups. As a result in SNNPR ethnic groups
established their own self administration scheme at the zonal and woreda level.
For this purpose regional governments are authorized to determine the structure
of their administration. They can establish their local structure in a way that can
best fit their domestic condition to facilitate for the self administration of their
nationalities.
On article 47(3) additional provision was entertained on the further possibility of
nationalities to establish their own regional administration, if they demanded so.
But the criteria stated under this article are so strict and complex that it is less
achievable by the nationalities (Refer the article).
The use of language in the federation is also another issue that was given
emphasis by the constitution. Accordingly under Article 5(1) it was declared that
all Ethiopian languages shall enjoy equal state recognition. In the same article it
was provided that Amharic shall be the working language of the federal
government. States were given the liberty to choose the working language in
their respective regions. For instance, Tigray, Oromia and Somalia chose-
Tigrigna, oromiffa and Somali, where as SNNPR, Benishangul/Gumuz and
Gambella opted to use Amharic as their working language.
The regional governments in the federation have equal power and rights
irrespective of their difference in terms of population number and Economic and
resource status. The past history of the country has its scar on the existing
status of the states. The past Ethiopian regimes had the tendency of
peripheralizing some parts of the country. This resulted regional disparity in the
level of economic development. The equal position given to regions regarding
right and authority is as part of the solution to narrow down the gap between the
relatively advanced and backward regions of the country.
The other most important issue that has to be raised in relation to the Ethiopian
federalism is the power division between the states and the federal government.
Federalism as a system of government has a theoretical establishment that it
has two levels of governments within a state, the federal government and the
states. The same applies to the Ethiopia federal structure. In such states power
distribution between the two levels is a necessary condition without which the
system itself looses its basic essence. The federal constitution regulated Inter-
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government relations (the relationship between the federal governments and the
states). The constitution explicitly lists down the federal powers, the state
powers, and concurrent powers and leaves residual power to the state.
It was not only limited to enumerating the powers of the states and the federal
government. Respecting and mutual non- intervention in to the powers of each
other is also the case in point under the constitution. Article 50(8) declares that’’
Federal and state power are defined by this constitution. The states shall respect
the powers of the federal government. The federal government shall likewise
respect the power of the states. Both have a constitutionally limited jurisdiction
of power, with the restriction of crossing over in each others affair.
The lists of matters that are left under the jurisdiction of the federal government
are very long and determinant as compared with the power left to states.
The powers and functions of the federal government were listed under article 51
of the constitution. These long lists of rights vested the federal government with
broad ranges of power and authority.
The powers, which are traditionally granted to federal government such as those
over foreign relations, national defense, inter state commerce, currency,
immigration, communication; inter-state water resource and other resource and
others are listed under federal powers. Accordingly development plans and
strategies for the overall country, formulation of policies and standards for
public health and education, deciding on the countries financial, monetary,
investment policies, administering the national bank, printing of money, minting
coins and regulating foreign exchange, formulation and implementation of
foreign policy and ratification of international agreements, development and
administration of transport and means of communication among the states,
collection of taxes under its jurisdiction and determination and administration of
water resources linking two or more states, among others are the most
important power left to the federal government for more (see Articl-51).

The constitution dedicated another article, Art-(52) to enumerate the power and
authority of states in the federation. Sub article 1 of the same article stated that
all powers which are not expressly left to the federal government and
concurrently to the two levels are reserved to the states.
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The state are constitutionally empowered to have executive, judiciary and
legislative power as a basis of enabling them to exercises other forms of
authorities provided to them. They are authorized to enact their own constitution
through their own regional council as a legislative organ. In addition they are
allowed to formulate development and economic policies of their state,
administer land and other natural resources, collecting taxes in their jurisdiction
and administer their own budget, to formulate laws on the state civil service and
their condition of work and establishing order and peace are authorities of the
states.

By designing such federal arrangement the country has shown a significant departure from the
past, where by the state was under the command of strong unitary regimes irrespective of the
multi-national nature of the entire population. The core justification behind the current Ethiopian
federal structure is to facilitate a fertile ground for the various nationalities to have a say in their
own affairs with little control from the centre or any other dominant elite. The fact that the
constitution provided such and other authorities means to make local peoples and nationalities to
decide their local affairs in a manner that fits the concrete situation of the local communities.

5.1 The Federal Houses and Legislative Organs

The federal government is structured in terms of legislative, executive and judicial institutions and
powers. The government is a parliamentary type composed of two houses, the House of peoples
Representatives (HPR) as the supreme political organ in the country and the upper house, the
House of the federation.
The highest authority of the federal government rests up on the house of people’s representatives.
This house is an institution whose members are elected for five years term on basis of free and fair
election, from a constituency of hundred thousand people through “the first past the vote” Voting
system.
The seats in the parliament for representatives determined not to exceed 550, out of which 20 seats
will be reserved for minority nationalities.
The house of peoples Representatives as a supreme organ of the state plays very important roles
within the state. Article (55) listed down the powers and functions of the HPR. The article begins
by stating that; the HPR can legislate in all matters that are exhaustively enumerated to the federal
government under article 51 of the constitution. So, all federal jurisdictions fall under the
competence of the HPR.

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On this basis the constitution mandated the house with the power to enact specific laws on a
number of vital areas that are mentioned as federal powers. These areas include the utilization of
land and natural resources, inter state commerce, foreign trade communication and transport
services. Nationality, immigration and enactment of different codes (penal, civil, commercial...)
are the lower house’s jurisdiction.
The house is also specifically mandated to decide on the organization of national defense, public
security and national police force, as well as the proclamation of state of emergency or state of war
pursuant to the decision made by the council of ministries. It is also responsible to ratify
international agreements signed by the executive.
The approval of economic, social, development, fiscal and monetary policies and the ratification of
the budget of the federal government is specifically provided as the competence of the house of
peoples Representatives.
The house together with the house of the federation can take appropriate measures on human right
violations that cannot be controlled by any regional state. More over it has the power to question
the prime minister and other federal officials. Up on the request of one third of its member’s the
house may discuss any matter pertaining to the power of the executive and take necessary
decisions and measures. The house of the federation (the upper house) is a representative organ
whose members are representative of each nations, nationalities and people.
The house is the house of nationalities elected for five years term. How much representative shall a
nationality group have is specified by the constitution. Each nationality would be represented at
least by one member, but the provision favored large ethnic groups to have more representation
when it decided that for each one million additional population of an ethnic group one more
representative will be allocated. These members can be elected either directly by the people or
indirectly by the state council.
With regard to the power of this house, its core function is constitutional interpretation. The
Ultimate authority to interpret the constitution is left to this organ. To this effect the house is given
the power to organize commission of constitutional inquiry (CCI). The CCI examines any case of
constitutional interpretation and if there is a need it will submit the case to the house, which passes
final decision on the issue. The CCI is composed of three members of the house, six legal experts
and the president and the vice president of the Supreme Court.
Another power entrusted to the upper house is the management of relationships among regional
states. Accordingly it maintains equality of all nationalities and finds solutions to problems and
misunderstanding arose between them. In addition issues of self-determination of nationalities up
to and including secession are determined to be handled by the same house.
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The house has entrusted financial function of partitioning funds between the federal and state
governments on revenues derived from joint tax sources. It additionally decides on the amount of
subsidy the federal government provides to the states. Given that it is allowed to exercise such
powers, the house of federation plays little role in the law making process. As compared with the
upper house in some countries like the senate in US, it cannot share power in some important areas
with the lower house (HPR).

5.2 The Executive under the Constitution

The federal executive is composed of the prime minister and the council of ministries along with a
ceremonial president. The highest executive authority is decided to rest up on the prime minister
and the council of ministries. The president is elected by two – third majority vote of joint session
of the two houses (HPR, HF)
The Constitution stated that the party with the majority seat in the HPR shall establish government
of the state by electing the PM. He is authorized as the chief executive officer of the state,
commander in chief of the army and head of the council of ministries. The other Power and
responsibilities of the Prime Minister and the president are further enumerated by the constitution.

5.3 The Judicial Structure

First and for most, the constitution recognized the establishment of an independent judiciary. The
judicial structure has three tiers, the Supreme Court being at the top. So these are the federal
Supreme Court, the federal high court and the federal first in stance court. The states do also have
their own court structure, the high and first in stance court. The HPR can establish only federal
high and first instance court in the regions when they are deemed necessary. Otherwise the state
supreme court can replace the jurisdiction of the federal high court and the state high court can
play the role of federal first instance court.
The highest and final judicial power over federal matters is given to the federal supreme court and
such final deciding power on state matters is left to the state supreme court.
The right of appeal by concerned parties follows the court structure of the constitution. If any party
to case in a court is dissatisfied by the decision passed by that court, the party has the right to
appeal to the next higher court structure. If for instance such a decision is given by the state first
instance court the appeal goes to the next higher court( the state high court), the appeal can
continue up to the federal supreme court.

UNIT FIVE
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 HUMAN AND DEMOCRATIC RIGHTS
1. Introduction
This unit basically deals with the Origin of the concept human rights, its historical and
philosophical development, their scope and contents, the protection and promotion mechanisms
available in the international arena with its drawbacks and effect on the domestic protection and
promotion of human rights. It also raises & discusses the various declarations and conventions
adopted and ratified by the International community.
2. THE CONCEPTION OF RIGHTS
The word “rights” is ambiguous, because it can be used in more than one sense and can have many
meanings. This condition poses a problem in defining “rights” and in securing their respect. In
order to understand the meaning of “rights”, it is better to classify them in the following categories
Legal rights -are those rights which are recognized by the actual law of actual states. so they are
necessarily enforceable, that is, it imposes a legal duty on others not to infringe up on it. Legal
rights are also called “positive rights.” one can find out what his /her legal rights are by referring
the laws that have been enacted or by asking judges or lawyers.
The legal right of citizens can be secured by positive law through various ways. For example it
may provide legal rights as:
Privileges - by not imposing a duty upon an individual or remaining silent in the process of
exercising his/her right
Claims - by placing on another individual under a duty to provide or refrain from interfering in the
exercise of his/her rights.
Powers - by putting an individual in a position to bring a change in the legal relations that exist
between him/her and other people.
Immunity -by protecting a person from a duty or punishment or from the exercise of other's power
up on him/her.
Moral rights:- these include claims (ethical or legal) about the way people ought to treat and deal
with one another . Most of the time moral rights are abstract claims which are related to religion
and percepts. A moral right is not necessarily enforced /some are enforced but some are not). As
legal rights there is no authority to consult about our moral rights. Thus there may be disagreement
among individuals on the possession of moral rights. One may think that he / she has a moral right
to some thing and some one else may think that you have not. In this case you have nothing you
can do to prove whether you have a moral right or not, except to justify your claim or criticism.
But moral rights like legal rights can be provided as duties, privileges, claims, and powers.

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Natural rights: - these rights are considered as a certain type of moral rights. But they are not a
kind of moral rights that belongs to only one person or to a certain a group (class) of people, rather,
they are moral rights which every human being, every where, at all times entitled by the very fact
of his/her nature, that is, being human and rational. Natural rights are rights thought to be exist by
nature before the existence of government or positive (legal) rights and positive law. So they
would continue to exist with out government and positive law as they are secured by natural law- a
law which is higher than conventional laws. During the medieval period this law was identified
with the rules laid down by God for all his creatures as revealed them in the bible or the working
of reason.
3. POSITION OF HUMAN RIGHTS IN THE REALM OF RIGHTS.
Human rights are right which belong to all of us, simply because we are human beings. They are
basic and fundamental rights which all individuals deserve as human beings. Human rights is a
twentieth century name for what has been traditionally known as “natural rights.” thus they differ
from other kinds of moral rights by their universality, that is, they are rights of all people, at all
times and in all situations. As some writers argue, this universal character of human rights (natural
rights) is a large part of our problems in seeking to justify them. They noted that, even though, they
belonged to the category of moral rights they are not easily justified as moral rights that belongs to
one person only or a group (class) of people. As human right is something that pertains to all
persons at all times, they can not be justified as rights that are earned or acquired by the enactment
of special roles: human rights are not bought , nor are they created by any other contractual
undertaking or they are not given by government and are not inherited . They belong to human
beings simply because of our humanity..
When we say human rights are moral rights, it is not to deny that they are positive (legal) rights for
many people. Where human rights are upheld and confirmed by a law that can be enforced by the
courts and respected by the government, they can be positive legal rights. In general human rights
are based on equality because they are based on our common nature - common needs and
capabilities, common sensitivity, fear and vulnerability - so they are applied equally in any space
and time with out distinction of color, sex, language citizenship, religion etc … they are universal -
held by all human beings, they are inalienable can not be taken away from human beings because
they are closely associated with human nature. They are natural- they do not emanate from
government will or individual conventions rather possessed by human being by their very nature.

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 4. HISTORICAL AND PHILOSOPHICAL BASE OF HUMAN RIGHTS
The history of human rights is long. The concern for human rights can be traced back to ancient
Greek city states and Rome. For Example, citizens of certain Greek cities enjoyed rights as which
are recognized in the modern time such as equal freedom of speech and equality before the law.
During the Hellenistic period -a period which followed the disintegration of the Greek city states,
the stoic philosophers formulated the doctrine of natural rights as something which belonged to all
men at all times by the simple fact of being human and rational They elaborated the concept of
natural rights together with the concept of natural law-universal moral law which transcends the
law of state (positive law). The political theory of medieval Christendom put greater stress on
natural law in relation with natural rights. Natural law was understood as the law of god and it
teaches the “duties of man” as distinct from the “rights of man”.
It was in the modern time that is after the Renaissance that natural law was restated in secular,
modern individualist terms by emphasizing natural law as rights rather than as duties of the
medieval period. In this regard theorists like Grotius, Pufendorf and writings of many social
contract theorists contribution was eminence. For example, John Locke in his book “second
Treaties of Government” which was published in 1688 presented the first fully developed theory of
natural rights. Locke as one of the social contract theorists argues that in the pre- social state of
nature (before the coming in to existence of government and positive law). Individuals have equal
natural right, prominent among them were thought to be the right to life, liberty and property. In
the absence of government, however, these rights are of little value. It is impossible to protect them
simply by individual action as there was dispute over rights. Thus people form societies, societies
establish government as a device to promote and protect these natural rights. According to Locke,
Government is established based on a social contract (agreement) between rulers and ruled. By this
citizens are obliged to obey only if the government protects their human (natural) rights, which are
morally prior to and above the claims and interests of the government. Government is legitimate to
the extent that if it systematically protects and furthers the enjoyment of the human rights of
citizens.

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The idea of natural rights of this kind had played a key role in the 17 th and 18th century struggle
against absolutism-which is based on the claim of high birth and traditional privilege rather than on
universal natural equality of human beings. For example, John Locke theory of government had
serious impact on Britain’s Glorious Revolution and the subsequent “Bill of Rights” which is
passed by a parliament in 1689. The Bill of Rights emphasized the importance of individual
freedom in government, and religion. It also prohibits the king from suspending laws and levy
taxes that are not sanctioned by parliament. The Bill proclaimed the subordination of the king to
the law and the right of the people to change the sovereign (king) they no longer trusted. In this
regard John Locke’s theory contributed by giving all these decisions a philosophical justification.
The impact of Lock’s reasoning and the example of the English Bill of rights was not confined to
Britain only, but it had a great influence through out the civilized world. In Virginia in June 1776,
a Bill of rights was adopted following the model of the English Bill of rights by a representative
convention. The Virginia Bill of rights proclaimed that “all men are by nature equally free and
Independent and have certain inherent rights, of which, when they enter into a state of society, they
can not, by any compact, deprive of divest their posterity: namely, the enjoyment of life and
liberty, with the means of acquiring and possessing property and pursuing and obtaining
happiness.”
The Virginia Bill of rights recognized the right to pursuit of happiness, in addition to the right to
life and liberty which has been named by Locke as natural rights. The thirteen American states in
the Declaration of Independence of 1776 affirmed in the same word that “we hold these truths to
be self evident: that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their creator with certain
inalienable rights, that among them are life, liberty and pursuit of happiness.” These rights were
later incorporated into the USA constitution of 1789 in greater detail. The constitution specified
freedom of speech and the press, the right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses,
papers and effects against unreasonable searches and seizure and to the free exercise of religion.
The 1789 French Declaration of the rights of man and citizen which was issued by the French
Constituent Assembly was modeled along the English and American Bill of rights. The
Declaration include the principle that “Men are born and remain free and equal in rights”, and also
asserts that “the end (purpose) of all political association is the preservation of the natural and
imprescriptibly rights of man and these rights are liberty, property, as “The power of doing what
ever that does not harm another. The exercise of these natural rights every man has any after limits
than those, which are necessary to secure to every other man to the free exercise of the same

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rights”. The French declaration also allows the right to free speech, free press, religions freedom,
freedom from arbitrary arrest and inviolable and sacred right of property.
Generally in this period the concept of human (natural) right was associated which claim political
authority and liberty based on natural human equality and inalienable natural rights.
Human rights of this time focused on civil and political rights, which had the purpose of protecting
an individual from unwarranted interference of political and social groups. But in practice these
rights have been limited to propertied males. Women along with servant laborers of either sex
were not recognized as right holders. But once the notion of equal and inalienable rights by all
were advanced it became difficult for those elites who denied human rights to justify their practice.
Thus, those who denied equal and inalienable rights begun struggle in order to expand the
reorganized subject’s of human rights.
For example, the claims of the working class for fair wages, the right to organize them selves and
for safe and humane working conditions have led to violent political conflict. The struggle of the
time also not only focused on alleviating political inequality but also on economic and social
inequality. The socialist thinkers like St. Simon and Fourier in particular argue that the economic
inequality of the industrial world should be removed, especially they advocate legislation to be
passed to improve working conditions and to guarantee security by ruthless taxation of wealth for
the provision of social services, and freedom for workers to organize in their unions for the defense
of their individual and collective rights.
Later, the demand of the workers was strengthened by the philosophy of the Marxist theory of the
“Dictatorship of the proletariat” which asserts that “There can be no true freedom with out the
remolding of the economic structure”. Based on this doctrine that is the recognition that to live
well and freely man must have at least the means requisite for living and which was made
increasingly practicable by the advance in technology and industrialization in making the means of
livelihood potentially accessible to all man. Moreover, due to the 1917 Bolshevik revolution of
Russia a new set of fundamental human rights were developed, that is, Economic and social rights.
The Intellectual thought and political struggle to secure and expand human rights conception did
not stop here. Due to the emergence of Independent states of Asia, Africa and Latin America from
the yoke of colonialism-a system which is based on exploitation and subjugation of the peoples of
these states gave rise to another form of human rights which are termed as solidarity rights
/people’s right.
The emergency of these rights is based on the idea that the current distribution of wealth,
opportunity and resources is unjust and unequal and this condition is easily grasped in countries of
the Third world (developing countries), who are the subjects of continuous exploitation of the
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international division of labor which stand in favors of the most developed western countries,
rather than to those people’s and states in a disadvantage context. Thus those states where their
people are in a situation of poverty forward a claim on the world community based on the
universal character of human rights ,that is , human rights are not the preserve of one part of the
world, but rather are the possessions of all people regardless of color, class, status of national
origins.
5. SCOPE AND CONTENTS OF HUMAN RIGHTS
In the development of human rights the contribution of different social revolutions that occur in the
world, the teachings of various philosophers and the recent ideological competition is eminence.
Accordingly, human rights developed from time to time in terms of scope and content. K. Vasak a
French jurist and former Director of the Division of human Rights and peace of UNESCO
Originally classified human rights in to three categories.
The first category was called the “First Generation Rights” which derived from the seventeenth
and eighteenth century reformist theory and closely associated with the English, French and
American Revolutions. This category include those rights which are called civil and political
rights also referred as “ Negative Rights”- which require governments to abstain from arbitrary
intervention in the enjoyment of these rights. Content wise civil and Political rights include:
1 The freedom and inviolability of a person
2 Freedom from racial and equivalent forms of discrimination
3 Freedom of Expression
4 Protection from unlawful acts by the state such as imprisonment, forced labor, freedom
from torture and from inhuman or cruel or degrading treatment or punishment.
5 The right to life, fair trial etc….
6 The right to vote and to stand for office at the various levels of government
7 Freedom of assembly and Association
8 Freedom of Information
The second category is called “Second Generation of Rights” .The origin of these rights is the
socialist movement of the nineteenth century Europe (especially France). Later developed and
reemphasized by various welfare movements and Revolutionary struggles especially, the 1917
Bolshevik revolution. The second generation of rights corresponds to rights which are called
Economic, social and cultural rights, also termed as “positive rights”- require positive state
intervention in fulfilling the quest for these rights.
This category of rights specifically includes.
Social and economic rights:
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 1 The right to work and protection against unemployment
2 Equality of opportunity (in education, labor market etc…)
3 The right to adequate standard of education, health services
4 The right to adequate standard of living (includes basic needs- food, shelter and clothing)
Cultural Rights:
1 The right to express, develop and promote ones own culture
2 The right to speak, to write and develop one’s language
3 The right to preserve one’s history and cultural heritage.
The third category is known as “Third Generations of Rights” which emerged in the last half of
twentieth century due to the emergence of independent developing countries from colonial rule
and the subsequent quest of these states for New International Economic Order which require
global redistribution of power wealth and other values. These states, moreover, want to make sure
that to use one’s own natural resource for the benefit of its people is a recognized right. This third
generation of rights particularly referred to as Environmental and Developmental rights. This
category of rights includes the rights like:

- The right to self determination of people (Economic, social, political and cultural)
- The right to economic and social Development
- The right to participate in the common heritage of mankind
- The right to clean environment
- The right to peace
- The right to humanitarian disaster relief.
Even though these rights are categorized in to their generation of rights, they basically deal with
the right and freedom of individuals and they are interdependent. For example, the right to life
which is considered as one of the civil right is closely associated with the right to food, clothing
and shelter of social rights. The other thing that should be bear in mind is that not all rights in the
first and second generation of rights are completely fit the “Positive” or” Negative” rights
category. There are some civil and political rights that require government intervention to be
actively exercised while, some economic and social rights require the mere abstention of
government in their enjoyment. But generally we can conclude that government has some
obligation in the exercise of human rights:

- The obligation to respect:- abstention of government from interfering or

constraining the exercise of such rights and freedoms

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 - The obligation to protect: the government must take responsibility to prevent and
control the violation of individual freedom and right by other third party.
- The obligation to full fill- this requires states to take further positive measures to
ensure the effective realization of such rights.
6. THE INTERNATIONAL PROTECTION OF HUMAN RIGHTS
Human rights have been considered as universal rights that all human beings entitled to posses and
exercise naturally. But historically and in contemporary practice one can easily encounter that
these rights have been denied and manipulated by different individuals (absolute rulers), societies
and governments. Thus, many great political struggles have been staged in order to either expand
the recognized subjects of human rights or to end the systematic denial of human rights for one and
all times. As a result of this and as almost all societies possess notions of justice; fairness and
dignity, human rights began to assume a prominent position in the world. But still both the denial
of these rights and the struggle to secure these rights is continued.
Human rights can be protected from abuse and arbitrary use of power by the government on the
rights of citizens (vertical protection) or from the violation of a citizen’s right by fellow citizens
(Horizontal protection).
But the controversy over the meaning of the term “right” in general and human rights in particular,
the difficulty of reconciling “Individual rights” with “collective’’ rights and the philosophical
complexities associated with different categories of rights posed a problem in the protection of
human rights. However, after the emergence of modern states different mechanisms have been
developed at national and international levels to promote and protect human rights.
In ancient time, the Greek city-states formulated the principle of “Natural Law” which is closely
related with Natural rights. The Natural law view is that there are certain rights that exist as a result
of a higher law than positive / man made law and such a higher law had universal and absolute set
of principles to govern all human beings in time and space. By this the Greek city-states had
granted some rights to their own citizens and citizens of other city-states in each other territories.
The Natural right approach of the seventeenth century, which is primarily associated with John
Locke, provides a powerful method of restraining arbitrary power by making recourse to a superior
type of law. In the 19th century the growth of positivism as a theory was encountered. It rejects
natural rights as nonsense and natural law as imaginary law and only advocates those rights that
could emanate from the constitutional structure of a given system. As a theory it also emphasized
on the authority of a state and only recognized states as the “subjects” of international law in
contrast with “Individuals” as the objects of International law. This made virtually all matters that
are classified as human rights issues to be a domestic matter which fall under national jurisdiction,
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that is, how states treated their own nationals is the prerogative of national governments and other
states and the International community are under the legal obligation not to intervene in such
matters.
This made possible the genocidal massacres of Russians against Jewish and the Turkish slaughter
of Armenians to be met only with polite statements of disapproval from the International
community before the Second World War (1939-1944). During the second world war, when the
Holocaust-where German Nazi systematically attempt to eliminate European Jewish, which
resulted in the torture and killing of six million Jews- was committed the international community
lacked the legal and political language to condemn them because the German government killing
of its own nationals was considered as simply exercising of its own sovereign rights.
6.1 HUMAN RIGHT PROTECTION IN THE UNITED NATIONS SYSTEM
The shocking atrocities committed by Nazis against humanity brought human rights into the
mainstream of international relation that as business of the International community. As a result an
International organization which was created after the second world war, that is , the United
Nations gave primary concern in its charter for the promotion and protection of human rights
unlike its predecessor , the League of Nations (established in1919-) which fails to mention in its
covenant human rights as a legitimate subject for international action. The united Nations (UN)
have a number of provisions on human rights in its charter. According to Article 1, paragraph 3 of
the charter the primary purpose of the organization is the encouragement of international co-
operation for the promotion and respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms for all without
distinction as to race, sex, language or religion.
In order to realize this the General Assembly of the UN was given the power to initiate studies and
make recommendation to governments regarding human rights.(Art 13(1) . while article 55
provides that the UN shall promote universal respect for and observance of human rights and
fundamental freedoms for all . Further more, article 56 states that all members pledge them selves
to take joint and separate action in cooperation with the organization for the achievement of the
purpose be set forth in article 55.
The mandate system of the League of Nations was replaced by the frost reship system, having the
basic objective of encouragement of respect for human rights. (Art. 76) In this regard article 73 of
the charter recognized the principle that the interest of the inhabitants of these non-self governing
territories was paramount and accepted as a sacred trust the obligation to promote the well- being
of the inhabitants.
The task to make recommendations for the purpose of promoting respect for , and observance of ,
human rights and fundamental freedoms for all was given to one of the organs of the UN , that is
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Economic and social council (ECOSOC) (Article 62). This general authority of ECOSOC was
supplemented by a specific requirement that it should organize a commission for the promotion of
human rights (Article 68) Even though, the Charter contain domestic jurisdiction provision in
article 2 (7) that prohibit the UN to intervene in matters which are essentially with in the domestic
jurisdiction of any states human rights were no longer recognized as being solely with in the
domestic jurisdiction states.
The UN began to work with a commission on human Rights in 1946. The commission use allotted
to perform certain tasks. One of these tasks is to developed proposals and to submit to the general
Assembly recommendations and reports regarding:
-An International Bill of Rights
-International Declarations or conventions relating to civil liberties, the status of women, freedom
of information, and similar matters
-The protection of minorities
-The prevention of discrimination on grounds of race, sex, language or religion
-Any of the matter concerning human rights.
The commission originally consists of 43 representatives of member states of the UN selected by
ECOSOC on the basis of equitable geographical distribution but the number of member states
increased to 53 in 1990. Following the creation of the commission on Human Right large numbers
of studies and reports of various kinds have appeared. Moreover, a range of declarations and
treaties has emerged coupled with the establishment of a variety of advisory services and
implementation and enforcement mechanisms. In order to make sure that all human beings possess
and enjoy human rights it adopts various instruments for the enforcement and realization of human
right principles.
7. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR’s)
It was adopted by the General Assembly of the United Nations on 10, December 1948. No member
of the UN opposed the adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Eight states-soviet
union and five of its allies (Byelorussia, Czechoslovakia, Poland, Ukraine and Yugoslavia), Saudi
Arabia and south Africa abstained from voting. The UDHR’s in its preamble states the basis on
which it is adopted “recognition of the inherent dignity and of the equal and inalienable rights of
all members of the human family is the foundation of freedom, justice and peace in the world”. It
was adopted by the UN General Assembly as a resolution which has a legal status of
recommendation that means it is not a legally binding document.
It was put forward as a provisional document, a statement of ideals. This was stated clearly in the
declaration that human rights “are a common standard of achievement for all people and nations”.
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in its thirty articles. The universal declaration covers a wide range of rights, which are considered
as:
I civil and political rights like.
-The right to life, liberty and security of persons (article3)
-Prohibition of slavery
-Prohibition of torture
-Prohibition of arbitrary arrest, detention or exile
-The right to fair trial
-The right to freedom of movement
-The right to property
-The right to freedom of thought and conscience and religion
-The right to freedom of opinion and expression
-The right to freedom of assembly and Association
-The right to participate in the government of one’s country.
II Social and economic Rights
-The right to work
-The right to adequate standard of living, including food, clothing housing and medical care,
-The right to education.
III Cultural rights include
--The right to participate in the cultural life of one’s community, to share in scientific advancement
-The right to the protection of the moral and material interests from one’s scientific literary or
artistic production.(article 27).
Even though the declaration is not a legal instrument, it has a marked influence up on the
constitutions of many countries and subsequent human rights treaties and resolutions. Here it
should also be noted that, at the conclusion of the Teheran international conference on human
rights in 1967 it was stressed that the declaration constituted “an obligation for members of the
international community” to respect the standards set out in the universal declaration. The
declaration has also been referred in many cases and become important in the development of an
international human rights law (binding conventions).
By now a number of important human rights which are referred as “core rights”-in the universal
declaration have acquired the status of international customary law and an international
conventions dealing with these rights were adopted. This includes the convention on the
prevention and punishment of the crime of genocide which is signed in 1948.

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The international convention on the elimination of all forms of racial discrimination was signed in
1965 and entered in to force in 1969. The importance of the universal declaration has been
repeatedly confirmed by different bodies of the UN and international conferences. In the second
world conference on Human rights which held in Vienna in 1993 named the universal declaration
as the source of inspiration and as the basis for the United Nation in making advances in standard
setting as contained in the existing international human right instruments.
The obligation of the united Nations regarding human rights are obvious (article 55 of UN
charter)- to promote “respect for and observance of, human rights and fundamental freedoms”. In
this regard, the universal declaration was important in naming what are these “human rights and
fundamental freedoms” are? But the question that, what should the UN done to promote respect for
and observance of them? remained an unanswered. In other words the question is how could the
declaration become subsequently legally binding? In order to make it binding by way of
interpretation of the UN charter on human rights were very general and vague.
Also there is no enforcement procedures laid down either in the charter or in the declaration when
the commission on Human right was in the process of proposing an “International Bill of Rights”.
There has been a hot debate between representative member states on the issue that whether the
proposed international Bill should take the form of a binding or judicial nature or as a manifesto of
rights. But the commission later settled the problem by reaching on a compromise, that is, rather
than producing one document it will produce two in which one will be a manifesto or a declaration
and later it will produce something more legally binding than a mere declaration and this second
instrument was decided to be called a covenant.
By this it produced the UDHR’s as a declaration (manifesto). After the adoption of the declaration
the UN General Assembly instructed the Commission on Human Rights in 1948 to complete the
task of producing a draft convention on human rights and draft measures of implementation. The
debate aroused due to the division of member states of the commission based on their ideological
orientation that advocate and recognized certain categories of human rights and only wants to
formulate those rights to be legally binding. But the proceedings to transform the “declaration” to
the “covenant” or nominal rights into positive rights took almost two decades. In addition to this
rather than producing one covenant, it became two - one dealing with civil and political rights the
other dealing with economic, social and cultural rights.
The official justification given to the division of the covenants in to two legal instruments was the
difference in kind between civil and political rights -traditional rights of man and economic and
social rights and the requirement of different mechanisms for their implementation. Moreover, the
ideological and political divisions of the post second world war period contribute its part for the
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division. Both the International covenant on civil and political rights and International covenant on
Economic social and cultural rights were adopted by the General Assembly of the United Nations
in 1966 and entered into force in 1976. The universal declaration of Human Rights and the two
covenants together are called International Bill of Rights.

8. The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights

This covenant basically deals with the promotion and protection of civil and political rights. The
covenant obliges every contraction state to respect and ensure to all individuals with in their
territories and jurisdiction the enjoyment of the rights recognized in the covenant without
distinction of any kind. The covenant is implemented by means of a reporting system whereby
state parties to the covenant submit reports on any national measures adopted to give effect to the
rights recognized in the covenant and the progress they made in the enjoyment of these rights, to a
supervisory committee of independent experts called Human Rights Committee. The primary
function of the committee is to review the periodic reports submitted by states. After considering
each states report the committee will issue a concluding comment by referring as “positive
aspects”, “principal subjects of concern” of the report and finally suggestion and recommendation
for improvement. The power of the Human Right Committee were extended by an optional
protocol, which allows the committee to receive and consider individual communications alleging
violations of the covenant by a state party to the first optional protocol. But the individual must
have exhausted all available domestic remedies before resorting to international mechanism for
solution. In this regard also the optional protocol does not provide an enforcement mechanism if a
particular state acted against the final view of the committee.

9. International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights

In the observance of human rights the observance of economic, social and cultural rights are
receiving less attention than the observance of civil and political rights. This is partly due to the
views of some countries to consider these rights as policy aims or aspirations than legally
enforceable human rights. State parties to this covenant are expected to take measures to the
maximum of its available resources “with a view of achieving progressively the full realization of
the rights recognized in the covenant”.
The covenant did not establish a supervisory committee rather states parties to the covenant
obliged to send periodic reports to ECOSOC but due to the work load of ECOSOC in 1978, a
sessional working group was setup which in 1985 was replaced by Economic, Social and Cultural
Committee. Unlike the Human Right Committee, the Economic, Social and Cultural Committee is

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not autonomous as it is not responsible for states parties but to one of the main organ of UN -
ECOSOC. There also exists no right to complain for states or individuals in case of an alleged
violation of economic, social and cultural rights. But there are proposals to create such rights.
Here one has to note that these are not the only covenants and declarations that the UN produced to
promote and protect human rights. Through years the UN has adopted a number of documents. In
addition to producing documents and establishing institutions, committees, subordinate organs,
which follow up the implementation of various human right provisions and treaties, its specialized
agencies like the International Labor Organization (ILO) and the United Nations Educational,
Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) have dealt with the protection and promotion of
human rights in their constitution or in the conventions they sponsored for member states to adopt.

10. Regional Human Rights supervisory Mechanisms

A. The Council of Europe
It is founded in 1949 with the aim of achieving greater unity between member states for the
purpose of safeguarding and realizing the ideals and principles which are their common heritage
and facilitating their economic and social progress. In 1950 foreign ministries of fifteen European
states signed a “European Covenant for the protection of Human Rights and Fundamental
Freedoms”. The covenant contains a number of provisions for the protection of civil and political
rights. From the beginning the council of Europe set itself to move on from the enumeration of
human rights to the “Universal and effective recognition” of them. This resolution of the
contraction states was clearly expressed in the preamble of the covenant as “the government of
European countries which are like minded and have a common heritage of political traditions,
ideals, freedoms and the rule of law to take the first step for the collective enforcement of certain
of the rights stated in the universal declaration proclaimed by united Nations in 1948.”
The importance of European covenant lies not so much on the right it specifies but in the fact that
it contains binding commitments and set up new International legal institutions. The two
innovative institutions of the council are the European Commission for Human Rights and the
European Court of Human Rights. These institutions are open to receive petition from individuals
who believe that their rights as defined in the European covenant are being violated. But the court
shall deal only with cares which come from the countries which recognize the authority of the
court. The convention also provides an inter state complaint- where by every state party to the
convention has the right to lodge the court a complaint of any alleged breach of the convention by
any other state party.

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Of the two bodies the commission is the first to consider any petition or complaint from state or
individuals. It has a filtering system in deciding which application is admissible or not. If cases are
accepted as admissible they are first referred to governments to reach a friendly settlement. If this
fail it will refer the case to the European Court of Human Rights . The court can and does issue
binding legal judgments. There is no right of appeal against the decisions of the court. The
decisions of the court are final and binding.
B. The organization of American states (OAS):
In 1948 the charter of the OAS was adopted together with the American Declaration of the Rights
and Duties of Man as a set of standards in the field of human rights. The Inter American
Commission on Human Rights was created in 1959 and its first statute approved by the OAS
council in 1960. In its statute it had wide powers to promote the study and awareness of human
rights and to give recommendation to member states.
In 1969 the American Convention on Human Right was adopted resulting the creation of the Inter
American Court of Human Rights, while the commission also continued to exist even its power
extended having the power to supervise the protection of all those rights enumerated in the charter
of the OAS, the American Declaration of the Rights and Duties of Man and the Convention. The
Inter American courts only supervise the provisions of the conversion which only apply to the
states party to the convention.
The convention has a provision that any person or group of persons or any non-governmental
organization legally recognized in one or more of the OAS member states may lodge petitions with
the commission alleging a violation of the convention by state party. The Commission also can
itself take the initiative to deal with a case of a particular person. The Commission also accepts
inter-state complaint but it require prior declaration recognizing the competence of the commission
by the compliant state and the state which the complaint is lodged while the court decides on
disputes brought before it by states parties to the convention or by the commission relating to
changes that a state party has violated the convention.
C. the African Charter on Human and People’s Right
In 1979 in Monrovia (Liberia) Assembly of the Heads of State of Africa agreed to adopt laws of
human rights. In 1981 the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Right was adopted which came
in to force in 1986. The charter contains a number of rights ranging from the classical civil and
political, economic, social and cultural and various peoples’ right. The charter also mention the
duties of the individual to the state, society and family- which include the duties to avoid
compromising the security of the state and to preserve and strengthening social and national
solidarity and independence.
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The charter set up an African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Right which started to function
in 1987. The commission has important educational and promotional responsibilities. This made it
a body to promote rather than to protect human rights. The commission may hear inter state
complaints on violation of the charter. It also deals with communications from other non- state
sources. State parties are obliged to submit reports every two years on the legislative or other
measures taken to implement the charter. There is no provision made for the court but a draft treaty
for such a court was adopted in 1998.

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11. Human Right of Women

As we have seen before the very term “human rights” indicate both their nature and source, that
is, they are rights that are possessed by all individuals because of the simple fact that they are
born human. Thus, we can conclude from this that human rights are held equally by all human
beings because human beings have them simply because they are human. Thus, human rights are
universal- applied to every single person by virtue of their humanity. In order to promote and
protect them a number of International human rights instruments have been drafted and ratified.
Moreover, most countries also recognize most of these rights and have incorporated them in their
constitutions, national legislations and laws. If these fundamental and basic rights are belonged to
all human beings irrespective of their differences, one can pose a question that, what is the
necessity of treating women’s human rights separately?

Those who advocate a separate international women human rights instruments argue that even
though, the various international and regional human rights instruments and the wide international
documents adopted and ratified include the provision of non-discrimination clause that recognize
human rights as inherent in all human beings and held equally by all, but they have been found
inadequate to address the subordination of women world wide. In other word, international human
rights standards are developed on the basis of a typical male-life experience, which legal order
privileges a male perspective and fails to accommodate the realities, most pressing risks,
problems of, or threats to, women’s lives. Thus, human rights documents make the reference to
gender difference with out really considering the disadvantage faced by women in reality. In a
world where distribution of power and goods is structured along gender lines, it will be naïve to
think that the mere provision of equality will bring a real change in women’s status and life in
society. Furthermore all of the international human rights instruments focus on the dichotomy
between the public belonged to men, while the private sphere-the home and family, is considered
to be that of the woman. Thus, international human instruments by reinforcing the distinction
between the two domains and by giving greater significance to the public sphere neglect to
regulate a particular aspect of the woman’s life. In other words, they did not consider the fact that
in the enjoyment of rights women face constraints and vulnerabilities which differ from those that
affect men and which are of relevance to the enjoyment of these rights.

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These mean that women may be affected by violations of rights in ways that are different from
men. By so doing, the international human right instruments neglect the value of the women and
her function in the private sphere. As a result, many women experience multiple barriers in
gaining access to rights, such as employment, housing, land, food and social security, which
basically contributed to the perpetuation of gender-based inequalities. The way international
instruments define, interpreted and implemented human rights was in a genderless manner so it
could not eradicate the gender inequality and discrimination.

Thus, the need for women’s participation in all spheres of society- in both the public and private
domains - and the recognition of inequality and discrimination in the private domain led to the
creation of specific standards for the protection of women’s rights. In this regard the UN general
Assembly in 1967 adopted the declaration on the Elimination of All forms of Discrimination
Against women. Based up on the declaration in 1979 it adopted the Convention on the
Elimination of all forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW). CEDAW establishes
women’s right to non-discrimination on the basis of sex and affirms equality in international law.
It provides that women and men are entitled to the equal enjoyment and exercise of human rights
and fundamental freedoms in civil, political, economic, social and cultural fields. The convention
among other things, oblige the states parties to the convention to undertake “to embody principles
of equality of men and women in their national constitutions or other appropriate legislations” and
to adopt laws or other measures including ‘’sanctions where appropriate, prohibiting all
discrimination against women”. It also require the state parties to take a serious of measures in the
political , social, economic and cultural realm to advance the enjoyment of equal rights by women
in all walks of life. But (CEDAW) initially did not define “discrimination against women” to
specifically cover violence against women.

But in 1993 the UN General Assembly further adopted the Declaration on the Elimination of
Violence Against Women (DEVAW), which define violence against women as encompassing
dowry- related violence, female genital mutilation and other traditional practices harmful to
women, female infanticide and pre-natal sex selection. The committee which was established by
the convention in addition to hearing states reports it may make general recommendation which is
included in the report. For example, general recommendation:

- No. 5 called up on states parties to make more use of “temporary special measures such as
positive action, preferential treatment and quota system to advance women’s integration into
education, the economy, politics and employment.
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-No 8 provided that state parties should take further measures to ensure to women on equal terms
with men and with out discrimination the opportunity to represent their government at the
international level.
-No. 12 called up on states parties to include in their reports information on measures taken to deal
with violence against women
-No. 14 called for measures to be taken to eradicate the practice of female circumcision
One thing you have to bear in mind is that CEDAW does not, per se, create new human rights for
women. It rather reiterates, in a specific manner, the rights of women not to be discriminated
against on the basis of sex and to have the necessary national legal, political and administrative
measures in place to be able to fully exercise their human rights.
In addition to drafting and adopting declarations and conventions, various conferences were held
to improve the status of women during the UN decade for women (1976-1985). The UN sponsored
women’s conferences, which took place in Mexico city in 1975, Copenhagen in 1980, Nairobi in
1985, Beijing in 1995 and New York (Beijing + 5) were convened to evaluate the status of women
and to formulate strategies for women’s advancement. In recent years, the question of women’s
rights has moved further up in the international agenda. The Vienna declaration and program of
action adopted in 1993 first declared that other than the reporting procedures which is the only
available mechanism to monitor states parties to the convention new procedures should also be
established to strengthen implementation of the commitment to women’s equality and the human
rights of women.
It also emphasized that the human rights of women should be brought in to the mainstream of UN
system wide activity and that women’s rights should be regularly and systematically addressed
throughout the UN bodies and mechanisms. Mainstreaming gender is an acknowledgement of the
different ways in which gender roles and gender relations shape women’s and men’s access to
rights, resources and opportunities, with in and between cultures and at different stages in their life
cycles. Its aim is to achieve the advancement of women through correcting disparities in different
policy sector and ensuring their enjoyment of civil, cultural, economic, political and social rights.
By this the need to incorporate the gender dimension in to UN human rights activities has also
been recognized by other key bodies within the UN system.
Thus since 1997 mainstreaming a gender perspective into policies and programmes has become an
objective of the UN system. In light of this , the various human rights treaty bodies special
procedures and the sub-commission on the promotion and protection of Human Rights, as well as
the high commissioner for human rights begun to work to ensure the implementation of integration
and mainstreaming of human rights of women in implementing their specific mandates. For
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example, the Human Rights committee adopted a comprehensive new general comment on gender
equality which thoroughly updated its earlier general comment made at 1981. In its general
comment No. 28 spells out what the core provision of the covenant on civil and political Rights
(ICCPR) entails and what information states parties are expected to provide in their reports.
The Human rights committee made very clear that the right to gender equality is not merely a right
to non-discrimination because affirmative action is required to achieve gender equality. In this
regard the states party must not adopt measures of protection, but also positive measures must be
taken in all areas so as to achieve the effective and equal empowerment of women. It also revisited
the various provisions of the covenant so as to be gender sensitive. For instance:
-Bearing in mind that women are particularly vulnerable in times of internal or international armed
conflicts, states parties must take special measures to protect women from rape, abduction and
other forms of gender-based violence (paragraph 8). The committee’s draft general comment No.
29 on states of emergency (currently under discussion) specifically focuses on this matter.
-When reporting on the right to life, states parties should provide data on birth rates and on
pregnancy and childbirth related deaths of women. Gender-disaggregated data should be provided
on infant mortality rates. Moreover “states parties should give information on any measures taken
by the state to help women prevent unwanted pregnancies, and to ensure that they do not have to
undertake life-threatening clandestine abortion” (paragraph 10).
-To assess compliance with article 7 (prohibition of torture and ill-treatment) of the covenant, as
well as with article 24 (special protection of children), the committee must receive information on
national laws and practice with regard to domestic and other types of violence against women,
including rape, on access to safe abortion for women who have become pregnant as a result of
rape, and on measures to prevent forced abortion or forced sterilization. “In states where the
practice of genital mutilation exists, information on its extent and on measures to eliminate it
should be provided” (paragraph 11).
-Access to justice as spelled out in article 14 of the covenant is not always enjoyed by women on
equal terms with men. “In particular states parties should inform the committee whether there are
legal provisions preventing women from direct and autonomous access to the courts or whether
women may give evidence as men; and whether measures are taken to ensure women equal access
to legal aid, in particular in family matters” (Paragraph 19).
-The right of everyone under article 16 of the covenant to be recognized everywhere as a person
before the law is particularly pertinent for women, who often see it curtailed by reason of sex or
marital status. “This right implies that the capacity of women to own property, to enter into a
contract or to exercise other civil rights may not be restricted on the basis of marital status or any
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other discriminatory ground. It also implies that women may not be treated as objects to be given
together with the property of the deceased husband or to his family” (Paragraph 19).
-As the publication and dissemination of obscene and pornographic material portraying women as
objects of violence is likely to promote such treatment, states parties are called upon to provide
information about legal measures to restrict the publication or dissemination of such material
(Paragraph 22).
-The right to marriage, which is the subjects of General comment No. 19 (1990), entails equality of
men and women to enter marriage only with their free and full consent. “Many factors may prevent
women from being able to make the decision to marry freely. One factor relates to the minimum
age for marriage. That age should be set by the state on the basis of equal criteria for men and
women.
These criteria should ensure women’s capacity to make an informed and unforced decision. A
second factor in some states may be that either by statutory or customary law a guardian, who is
generally male, consents to the marriage instead of the woman herself” (Paragraph 23). The
existence of social attitudes which tend to marginalize women victims of rape and which put
pressure on them to agree to marriage are incompatible with a woman’s right under article 23 of
the covenant. “a woman’s free and full consent to marriage may also be undermined by laws which
allow the rapist to have his criminal responsibility extinguished or mitigated if he marries the
victim” (Paragraph 24). The committee notes further that polygamy violates the dignity of women
and should be abolished wherever it continues to exist.
-Equality during marriage implies that husband and wife should participate equally in
responsibility and authority within the family (Paragraph 25). States must also ensure equality in
regard to the dissolution of marriage, which excludes the possibility of repudiation (Paragraph 26).
-Affirmative action is particularly necessary in connection with the right to participate in the
conduct of public affairs. The committee requires states parties to provide statistical information
on the percentage of women in publicly elected offices including the legislature as well as in high-
ranking civil service positions and the judiciary (Paragraph 29).
-In addition to human rights committee. The committee on the elimination of racial discrimination
adopted a general recommendation (No. 25) on gender related Dimensions of racial discrimination,
as part of the commitment to mainstream gender by all parts of the UN.
Thus, the committee recognizes
-“Recognizing that some forms of racial discrimination have a unique and specific impact on
women, the Committee will endeavor in its work to take into account gender factors or issues
which may be interlinked with racial discrimination. The committee believes that its practices in
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this regard would benefit from developing, in conjunction with the states parties, a more
systematic and consistent approach to evaluating and monitoring racial discrimination against
women, as well as the disadvantages, obstacles and difficulties women face in the full exercise and
enjoyment of their civil, political, economic, social and cultural rights on grounds of race, color,
descent, or national or ethnic origin”.
Accordingly, the committee, when examining forms of racial discrimination, intends to enhance its
efforts to integrate gender perspectives, incorporate gender analysis, and encourage the use of
gender-inclusive language in its sessional working methods, including its review of reports
submitted by states parities, concluding observations, early warning mechanisms and urgent action
procedures, and general recommendations”.
-“Noting that reports submitted by state parties often contain specific or sufficient information on
the implementation of the convention with respect to women. State parties are requested to
describe as far as possible in quantitative and qualitative terms, factors affecting and difficulties
experienced in ensuring for women the equal enjoyment, free from racial discrimination, of rights
under the convention. Data which has been categorized by race or ethnic origin, and which is then
disaggregated by gender within those racial or ethnic groups, will allow the states parties and the
committee to identify, compare and take steps to remedy forms of racial discrimination against
women that may otherwise go unnoticed and unaddressed”.

DEMOCRACY

Democracy is, literally, rule by the people (from the Greek demos, "people," and kratos, "rule").
The methods by which this rule is exercised, and indeed the composition of "the people" are
central to various definitions of democracy, but the general principle is that of majority rule.
Useful contrasts can be made with oligarchies and autocracies, where political authority is highly
concentrated and not subject to meaningful control by the people. While the term democracy is
often used in the context of a political state, the principles are also applicable to other areas of
governance.

Kinds of democracy
There are different kinds of democracy. Some of them are discussed below.
Based on participation of citizens we have direct democracy and representative democracy.
Direct democracy, classically termed pure democracy, is a political system where the people vote
on government decisions, such as questions of whether to approve or reject various laws. It is
called direct because the power of making decisions is exercised by the people directly, without
intermediaries or representatives. Historically, this form of government has been rare, due to the
difficulties of getting all the people of a certain territory in one place for the purpose of voting. All
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direct democracies to date have been relatively small communities; usually city-states. The most
notable was the ancient Athenian democracy.

Representative democracy is so named because the people do not vote on most government
decisions directly, but select representatives to a governing body or assembly. Representatives may
be chosen by the electorate as a whole (as in many proportional systems) or represent a particular
subset (usually a geographic district or constituency), with some systems using a combination of
the two. Many representative democracies incorporate some elements of direct democracy, such as
referenda.

There are also the following kinds of democracy

Liberal democracy

Liberal democracy is a form of government. It is a representative democracy where the ability of

the elected representatives to exercise decision-making power is subject to the rule of law, and
usually moderated by a constitution which emphasizes the protection of the rights and freedoms of
individuals and minorities, and which places constraints on the leaders and on the extent to which
the will of the majority can be exercised.

These rights and freedoms include the rights to due process, private property, privacy, and equality
before the law, and freedoms of speech, assembly and religion. In liberal democracies these rights
(also known as "liberal rights") may sometimes be constitutionally guaranteed, or are otherwise
created by statutory law or case law, which may in turn empower various civil institutions to
administer or enforce these rights.

Liberal democracies also tend to be characterized by tolerance and pluralism; widely differing
social and political views, even those viewed as extreme or fringe, are permitted to co-exist and
compete for political power on a democratic basis, although this rarely occurs in practice due to
public rejection of radical agendas that seek to overthrow liberal democracy. Liberal democracies
periodically hold elections where groups with differing political views have the opportunity to
achieve political power.

The term "liberal" in "liberal democracy" does not imply that the government of such a democracy
must follow the political ideology of liberalism. It is merely a reference to the fact that the initial
framework for modern liberal democracy was created during the Age of Enlightenment by
philosophers advocating liberty. They emphasized the right of the individual to have immunity
from the arbitrary exercise of authority.

Today, democracy is often assumed to be liberal democracy, a form of representative democracy

where the ability of elected representatives and the will of the majority to exercise decision-
making power is subject to the rule of law, and usually moderated by a constitution which
emphasizes the protection of liberties, freedoms, and rights of individuals and minorities. This
form of government has become increasingly common in recent times, so that almost half of the
world's population now lives under liberal democratic regimes.

Illiberal democracy

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 Illiberal democracy is one where the protections that form a liberal democracy are either
nonexistant, or not enforced. The experience in some post-Soviet states drew attention to the
phenomenon, although it is not of recent origin.

History of democracy

The history of democracy is made complex by the varied concepts and definitions used in different
contexts and discussions. Democracy can range from the very broadly based institutions in which
adult universal suffrage is used to elect representative, to very informal assemblies in which the
people voice their opinions, and leader act upon those feelings, to elected representatives who have
limited power under an unelected monarch.

a. Prehistoric democracies

The earliest forms of democracy may have originated in the bands and tribes of prehistoric times.
These groups of people, related by blood and marriage, often assigned the eldest member of a
group to be its leader. As groups became larger, a method of selecting a ruler from among the
elders of various family lines had to be developed. This process began to take on more of a
religious nature and could become either more or less democratic. Larger societies tended to be
less democratic for the simple reason that technology for communication was extremely limited.
For the largest societies, democracy was perhaps less efficient than a strong central ruler in
managing the complex economic and military spheres associated with civilization. Because it is
based on writing, the historical record is likely to be biased towards less democratic societies
because of the advantages associated with a strong central government. Nevertheless, earlier forms
of government may have survived for some time. The Iroquois Confederacy is a modern example
of tribal democracies that likely existed beyond the written record

b. Ancient Sumeria

The Sumerian City States are believed to have had some form of Democratic setup initially. They
became monarchies over time. This is probably the first use of Democracy by a civilized, urban
society, rather than by a nomadic tribal entity.

c. Anicient Greece

Athens is among the first recorded and one of the most important democracies in ancient times; the
word "democracy" (Greek: "rule by the people") was invented by Athenians in order to define
their system of government, around 508 BCE. In the next generation, Ephialtes had a law passed
severely limiting the powers of the Council of the Areopagus, which deprived the Athenian
nobility of their special powers.

Athenian democracy was based on selection of officials by lot, and decisions in other cases by
majority rule. The assembly of all male citizens in Athens voted on decisions directly (compare
direct democracy). Elected officials did not determine decisions — giving decision-making power
to elected officials was considered by the ancient Athenians to take away the power of the people,
effectively making the state an oligarchy. Democracy had (and for some people still has) the
meaning of equality in decisions and of elections in decisions, not the election of persons charged
to decide (see representative democracy). Few checks on or limits to the power of the assembly

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existed, with the notable exception of the graphe paranomon (also voted on by the assembly),
which made it illegal to pass a law that was contrary to another.

The anicient Indians,Romans and other anicient practices that greatly contributed to the
emergence and development of democracy.

d. 20th century waves of democracy

20th century transitions to liberal democracy have come in successive "waves of democracy",
variously resulting from wars, revolutions, decolonization and economic circumstances. World
War I and the dissolution of the Ottoman and Austro-Hungarian empires resulted in the creation of
new nation-states in Europe, most of them nominally democratic. The rise of fascist movements,
and fascist regimes in Nazi Germany, Mussolini in Italy, Francisco Franco's regime in Spain and
António de Oliveira Salazar's regime in Portugal, limited the extent of democracy in the 1930s,
and gave the impression of an "Age of Dictators". The status of most colonies remained
unaffected.

The number of liberal democracies currently stands at an all-time high, and has been growing
without interruption for some time. As such, it has been speculated that this trend may continue in
the future to the point where liberal democratic nation-states become the universal standard form
of human society.

Major theories of democracy

a. Conceptions of democracy

Among political theorists, there are many contending conceptions of democracy.

On one account, called minimalism, democracy is a system of government in which citizens give
teams of political leaders the right to rule in periodic elections. According to this minimalist
conception, citizens cannot and should not “rule” because on most issues, most of the time, they
have no clear views or their views are not very intelligent

A second view is called the aggregative conception of democracy. It holds that government should
produce laws and policies are close to the views of the median voter — with half to his left and the
other half to his right.

A third conception, deliberative democracy, is based on the notion that democracy is government
by discussion. Deliberative democrats contend that laws and policies should be based upon reasons
that all citizens can accept. The political arena should be one in which leaders and citizens make
arguments, listen, and change their minds.

The above three conceptions assume a representative democracy.

Direct democracy, a fourth conception, holds that citizens should participate directly, not through
their representatives, in making laws and policies. Proponents of direct democracy offer varied
reasons to support this view. Political activity can be valuable in itself, it socializes and educates
citizens, and popular participation can check powerful elites. Most importantly, citizens do not
really rule themselves unless they directly decide laws and policies.

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Another conception of democracy is that it means political equality between all citizens. The
typical modern democracy relies on the assumption that the majority of the votes establishes the
will of the people, as opposed to majority rule of the entire demos (population). This can be used
as an argument for making political participation mandatory, like compulsory voting, or for
limiting the influence of the wealthy.

These conceptions of democracy are based on the question of what a democracy ought to be. A
fifth and quite different conception of democracy is based on the assumption that a democracy
performs a function for the members of a collective who create it and that individuals in a
democracy play roles. This conception assumes that the actual people who occupy these roles and
perform this function in a real democracy are self-interested. The conception was invented by
economists and is sometimes called an economic approach to democracy. It is represented by the
field of Public Choice.

Another conception of democracy is that it is majority rule and is justified under utilitarian
reasoning. The advantanges of democracy seen under this conception is that the majority of the
population are satisfied with the governance they live under. The disadvantage is that the minority
live under the power of the majority sometimes termed the tyranny of the majority, or mob rule.
This can lead to the marginalisation of large portions of a population if the will of the majority is
not restrained by a strong and just constitution and legal system.

b. The democratic state

Though there remains some philosophical debate as to the applicability and legitimacy of criteria
in defining democracy ,what follows may be a minimum of requirements for a state to be
considered democratic:

 That there is a demos, a group which makes political decisions by some form of collective
procedure. Non-members of the demos do not participate. In modern democracies the
demos is the adult portion of the nation, and adult citizenship is usually equivalent to
membership.

 That there is a territory where the decisions apply, and where the demos is resident. In
modern democracies, the territory is the nation-state, and since this corresponds (in theory)
with the homeland of the nation, the demos and the reach of the democratic process neatly
coincide. Colonies of democracies are not considered democratic by themselves, if they are
governed from the colonial motherland: demos and territory do not coincide.

 That there is a decision-making procedure, which is either direct, in instances such as a

referendum, or indirect, of which instances include the election of a parliament.

 That the procedure is regarded as legitimate by the demos, implying that its outcome will
be accepted. Political legitimacy is the willingness of the population to accept decisions of
the state, its government and courts, which go against personal choices or interests.

 That the procedure is effective in the minimal sense that it can be used to change the
government, assuming there is sufficient support for that change. Showcase elections, pre-
arranged to re-elect the existing regime, are not democratic.
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 Democracy beyond the state level

While the majority of thoughts deal mainly with democracy as a system to rule countries, voting
and representation (democratic practices) have been used to govern many other kinds of
communities and organisations. For instance:

 Many non-governmental organisations decide policy and leadership by voting.

 Christian monachal orders often appointed their abbots through the votes of the monks.
Many Utopian reformers have been inspired by monachal communities.
 In business, companies elect their boards by votes weighed by the number of shares held by
each owner.
 Trade unions usually choose their leadership through democratic elections.
 Cooperatives give each person (a worker or a consumer) one vote.

RULE OF LAW

"We are free because we live under civil laws." --- Charles de Secondat Montesquieu

"Rule of law" is one of the much said but little understood concepts in popular press and daily
conversations today. What is rule of law? What is its significance? Does rule of law mean that
there is no "rule of person?" What are the institutional conditions and cultural content of rule of
law? How do we achieve rule of law?

The difference between "rule by law" and "rule of law" is important. Under the rule "by" law, law
is an instrument of the government, and the government is above the law. In contrast, under the
rule "of" law, no one is above the law, not even the government. The core of "rule of law" is an
autonomous legal order. Under rule of law, the authority of law does not depend so much on law's
instrumental capabilities, but on its degree of autonomy, that is, the degree to which law is distinct
and separate from other normative structures such as politics and religion. As an autonomous legal
order, rule of law has at least three meanings.

First, rule of law is a regulator of government power. Second, rule of law means equality before
law. Third, rule of law means procedural and formal justice. We will take up these meanings of
rule of law one by one.

First, as a power regulator, rule of law has two functions: it limits government arbitrariness and
power abuse, and it makes the government more rational and its policies more intelligent.

The opposite of rule of law is rule of person. There are two kinds of rule of person. The first kind
is "rule of the few persons," examples of which include tyranny and oligarchy. The second kind of
rule of person is "rule of the many persons," an example of which is the ancient Greek
democracies. The common feature of rule of person is the ethos that "what pleases the ruler(s) is
law." That is, under rule of person, there is no limit to what the rulers (the government) can do and
how they do things.

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In contrast, a key aspect of rule of law is "limitation;" i.e., rule of law puts limits on the
discretionary power of the government, including the power to change laws. This is why the
western juridical tradition is Roman, not Greek. One of the major problems of ancient Greek
democracy is that its conception of law does not contain the idea of limitation. The Greek word
"eleutheria," commonly translated as "freedom," connotes a freedom that extends into the principle
that what pleases the people is law. In other words, there were no limits to the (democratic)
governments of ancient Greece, and the popular will, be it short-term passion or long-term
rationality, would always become law if the demos so wished. "As soon as law lost its sacred
character, popular sovereignty was placed above the law, and, by that very act, government by
laws was once again fused and confused with government by men.

Unlike the Greek system, the Roman system of law limited the ability of the rulers to change laws,
and it greatly influenced the Anglo-Saxon version of rule of law. At the core of the Anglo-Saxon
conception of rule of law is the idea that the discretionary power of the government should be
limited. Whenever there is discretion there is room for arbitrariness and . . . in a republic no less
than under a monarchy discretionary authority on the part of the government must mean insecurity
for legal freedom on the part of its subjects. The solution to this problem, say liberal democrats, is
rule of law.

When some writers describe "rule of person," they mean only "rule of the few persons." These
writers think that, as long as we have democracy ("rule of the many"), we have justice and rule of
law. These writers forget that the popular will can rule with or without constitutional and legal
limits. Without constitutional and legal limits, popular will can be as destructive as, or even more
destructive than, the unfettered discretion of "the few." Examples include the injustices of classical
Greek democracy, terrors of the French Revolution and the crimes against humanity committed
throughout history. Second, some writers think that, as long as laws are passed through democratic
procedures, they represent the general will and therefore are just laws. These writers forget that
"popular will" is not necessarily "general will". Unfettered popular will can not only deviate from
general will, it can run against and destroy the general will.

In more specific terms, how is government arbitrariness constrained? The answer lies in several
important principles of rule of law. First, if we are to limit government caprice, rule of law requires
the supremacy of law as opposed to the supremacy of the government or any political party. To the
noted English jurist A. V. Dicey rule of law means, "in the first place, the absolute supremacy or
predominance of regular law as opposed to the influence of arbitrary power, and excludes the
existence of arbitrariness, of prerogative, or even wide discretionary authority on the part of the
government".

Second, if the government is to be restricted in its exercise of discretion, the government has to
follow legal procedures that are pre-fixed and pre-announced. As F. A. Hayek puts it, rule of law
"means that a government in all its actions is bound by rules fixed and announced beforehand --
rules which make it possible to foresee with fair certainty how the authority will use its coercive
powers in given circumstances, and to plan one's individual affairs on the basis of this knowledge"
(Hayek, 1994, p.80). For example, in constitutional and criminal law, there is a prohibition on "ex
post facto" laws, that is, no one should be punished for a crime not previously defined in law. In
other words, the government cannot simply define a new crime and apply the new definition
retrospectively. The rationale for this principle is that, first, the government should not be allowed
to abuse its power by punishing individuals for political or other conveniences; second, it would be
grossly unjust and oppressive for the government to punish someone for behavior that was not

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known to be criminal at the time of commission; third, to so punish individuals would result in so
many uncertainties that it would create great inefficiencies.

Rule of law as a constraint on government power is well recognized, but its cognitive value in
enhancing government's rationality is often less understood. Rule of law not only limits the
arbitrariness of the government; it also makes the government more intelligent and articulate in its
decision making. For one example, as Professor Stephen Holmes writes, only a constitution that
limits the capacity of political decision makers to silence their sharpest critics . . . can enhance the
intelligence and legitimacy of decisions made" (Holmes, 1995, p. 8). For another example, the key
reason why liberal democrats do not believe in the pure will theory of legality is that, without rule
of law as a limit, popular will can easily be corrupted by passions, emotions and short-term
irrationalities. As such, liberal democrats demand rule of law because it helps us to behave
according to our long-term interest and reason.

One comment on the relationship between rule of law and liberalism is due here. Liberalism
requires a limited government, and it naturally finds rule of law (as a regulator of government
power) a necessary institutional arrangement. We can say that liberalism requires rule of law, and
that rule of law is an institutional realization of liberal ideals. Historically, however, rule of law
existed before liberalism. According to Dicey, rule or supremacy of law was firmly established in
England before the end of the sixteenth century, when liberalism as a political and social
philosophy had not been completely born yet. However, rule of law as a constraint on government
arbitrariness might have provided a strong institutional and cultural support for the birth of
liberalism in England, whose core teachings included the doctrine of limited government and the
right of revolution.

The second meaning of rule of law, according to Dicey, is equality before law. "[N]ot only that . . .
no man is above the law, but (what is a different thing) that . . . every man, whatever be his rank or
condition, is subject to the ordinary law of the realm and amenable to the jurisdiction of the
ordinary tribunals. . . . Though a soldier or a clergyman incurs from his position legal liabilities
from which other men are exempt, he does not escape thereby from the duties of an ordinary
citizen" (Dicey, 1982, p. 114-115).

The third meaning of rule of law is formal or procedural justice. What is formal or procedural
justice? Before we answer this question, we need to answer a more preliminary question: what is
formalism? Max Weber categorizes legal systems into four kinds: formally irrational, substantively
irrational, formally rational, and substantively rational. Rationality refers to the generality and
universality of law. Formality refers to the characteristic that the criteria of lawmaking and law
finding are intrinsic to the legal system itself; that is, all rules, procedures and decisions can be
deduced from the legal system itself. In contrast, a legal system that emphasizes substantive
qualities of lawmaking and law finding uses factors outside law, such as ethical, emotional,
religious or political factors, to evaluate cases. To Weber, only a formally rational legal system can
achieve "legal domination" (rule of law) through consistent application of general rules, because
only a formally rational legal system can maintain a "consistent system of abstract rules" that is
necessary for rule of law.

A formally rational legal system, according to the some legal traditions, also results in justice that
we desire. This kind of justice is called formal or procedural justice, which "connotes the method
of achieving justice by consistently applying rules and procedures that shape the institutional order
of a legal system" (Shen, 2000, p. 31). More specifically, formal or procedural justice consists of
several principles. First, the legal system must have a complete set of decisional and procedural
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rules that are fair. Second, the fair rules of decision and procedure must also be pre-fixed and pre-
announced. Third, these decisional and procedural rules must be transparently applied. Fourth,
these decisional and procedural rules must be consistently applied. When these four conditions are
satisfied, western judges and lawyers will say that they have achieved a certain kind of justice,
which is called formal or procedural justice. Note that this notion of justice is more concerned with
process and procedure than with the end result.

One example will help illustrate the concept of procedural or formal justice in contrast to
substantive justice. If, in truth, a person has killed another person, substantive justice requires that
the killer be punished according to law. However, if the killer is illegally tortured by the police to
confess to his crime and, as a result of the confession, the police find conclusive evidence (i.e.,
evidence proving guilt beyond reasonable doubt), such as the weapon, the body of the victim, etc.,
for the court to convict the killer (which results in substantive justice), there is no procedural
justice because the process of finding guilt has violated the basic rights of the killer who, before
the conviction, is a citizen entitled to the full protection of the Bill of Rights.

You might ask: does it make sense to emphasize procedural justice? The general answer is yes. In
a system that sacrifices procedural justice for the sake of substantive justice, the danger of arbitrary
government power and the threat to individual liberty will be too great. Eventually, that system
will lead to substantive injustice as well. In contrast, in a system that emphasizes procedural
justice, arbitrary government power will be checked, liberty will be protected, and substantive
justice will be preserved in the long term (if we believe that truth is best obtained through contest
and debate between equals).

More specifically, formal or procedural justice has at least three values. First, without fair and just
procedure, there is no guarantee that the end result will be just (that is, substantive justice cannot
be guaranteed). As such, procedural justice is seen as a necessary condition for substantive justice.
This is why the most democratic legal traditions place a much higher value on formal or
procedural justice.

Second, formal or procedural justice is a condition for constraining government arbitrariness and
protecting individual rights. When the government is required to follow pre-fixed, transparent and
fair procedures before it can deprive a person's life, liberty or property, the danger of government
arbitrariness is substantially reduced and the prospect for wrongful deprivations of individual
rights is also significantly diminished.

Third, as Max Weber points out, procedural justice results in consistency, predictability and
calculability that are desirable aspects of economic and social life. This second value of procedural
justice is independent of any value we place on substantive justice and strengthens the argument
for the western tradition of emphasizing procedural justice.

Promoting rule of law does not mean that we should, or can, eliminate rule of person. Literal rule
of law has its own costs (such as rigidity) and in some cases it can conflict with our sense of
justice. In addition, it is probably impossible to eliminate rule of person completely. After all, laws
are not given; they have to be made by certain people. Laws' applications are not automatic; they
have to be applied by certain people. Even in the most advanced liberal democratic countries of
our time -- the countries that are regarded as having the most developed systems of rule of law --
human factors play important roles in shaping traditions, customs and institutional cultures that are
integral parts of the liberal democratic machinery. The real question is not whether we should
eliminate or keep rule of person. The real question is about how to strike a balance between rule of
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law and rule of person so we can achieve liberty, equality, and justice. In this regard, liberal
constitutionalism has been the only successful system. "Liberal constitutionalism is the technique
of retaining the advantages of [rule of law as well as rule of person] while lessening their
respective shortcomings" (Sartori, 1987, p. 308).

Strengthening the Rule of Law & Respect for Human Rights

The term "rule of law" embodies the basic principles of equal treatment of all people before the
law, fairness, and both constitutional and actual guarantees of basic human rights. A predictable
legal system with fair, transparent, and effective judicial institutions is essential to the protection of
citizens against the arbitrary use of state authority and lawless acts of both organizations and
individuals. In many states with weak or newly-emerging democratic traditions, existing laws are
not fair or are not fairly applied, judicial independence is compromised, individual and minority
rights are not truly guaranteed, and institutions have not yet developed the capacity to administer
existing laws. Weak legal institutions endanger democratic reform and sustainable development.

Without the rule of law, the executive and legislative branches of government operate without
checks and balances, free and fair elections are not possible, and civil society cannot flourish.
Beyond the democracy and governance sector, the accomplishment of development goals also
relies on effective rule of law. For example, civil and commercial codes that respect private
property and contracts are key ingredients for the development of market-based economies.
Various countries efforts to strengthen legal systems fall under three inter-connected priority areas:
supporting legal reform, improving the administration of justice, and increasing citizens' access to
justice.

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