Abstract
After a brief historical introduction in Part I, this chapter proposes to broadly revisit the principles discussed in the Reference to assess their role and impact in the Ethiopian Constitution. More specifically, Part II offers an overview of the principle of federalism in Ethiopia , while Part III discusses respect for minorities and ethnicity as central tenets of the current Ethiopian federal architecture. Part IV is devoted to constitutionalism and the rule of law, and Part V thoroughly analyses the secession clause as combined with the democratic principle. The conclusion will assess lessons and legacy of the Reference in the Ethiopian context.
Erika Arban is a Postdoctoral research fellow at the Centre for Comparative Constitutional Studies, Melbourne Law School; lecturer at the Faculty of Law, University of Antwerp. This research was fully funded by the Australian Government through the Australian Research Council (ARC) Laureate Program “Balancing Diversity and Social Cohesion in Democratic Constitutions.”
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- 1.
Italy occupied Ethiopia at the end of the XIX century but was defeated by Menelik’s army in the battle of Adowa in 1896. A treaty signed in the aftermath left Italy in control only of its colony in Eritrea (Medlock Wigger 1998).
- 2.
Although the Constitution refers to them as “states,” they are also called “regional states” or “regions” (a legacy of the terminology adopted in the pre-federation period (1991–1995)) (Regassa 2004). In Amharic language, these constituent units are called kilils: the kilil of Southern Nations, Nationalities and Peoples is the most heterogeneous, being the home of more than 56 different ethnic groups (Bihonegn 2015a, citing Vaughan and Tronvoll).
- 3.
A further classification is commonly made between indigenous and non-indigenous minorities, depending on whether these minorities inhabit their region or not. Indigenous internal minorities can claim more extensive rights protection based on federal and regional constitutions than the non-indigenous counterparts (Fessha and Van der Beken 2013).
- 4.
Regional state constitutions provide for zonal, wereda and kebele local administrations (Hessebon and Idris 2017). Zones and wereda are “ethnic-based territorial administrations” whose goal is to allow ethnic groups to exercise their constitutionally protected right to self-determination through the establishment of their own territorial administration, although not all ethnic groups have their own zone or wereda. Normally, regional constitutions treat zones and wereda as having identical status powers and functions, although wereda are established for “smaller and territorially strongly concentrated ethnic groups” (Van der Beken 2013).
- 5.
Addis Ababa and Dire Dawa—the two autonomous cities—have no representation in the HoF, since they are non-ethnic administrations, although some of the tasks of the HoF might be relevant to them (Bihonegn 2015b).
- 6.
In this sense, scholars point out that land has been the source of power for nobility, both ecclesiastical and secular. And since Ethiopia is an agrarian society, control over land means control over people (Abbay 2009).
- 7.
Article 93 Const. deals with the declaration of state of emergency, and Article 93(4)(c) protects the right of secession and self-determination from limitation or suspension in such extreme circumstances: “[i]n the exercise of its emergency powers the Council of Ministers cannot, however, suspend or limit the rights provided for in Articles 1, 18, 25, and sub-Articles 1 and 2 of Article 39 of this Constitution.”
- 8.
While secession has not yet been invoked to secede from Ethiopia , internal secession issues have been triggered a number of times. The most famous and successful one was the Silte case: here, the Silte ethnic group claimed a distinct identity from the Guraghe group to which it was attached and sought to secede from the latter to form its own local government as part of the Southern Nations, Nationalities and Peoples regional state. The HoF eventually recognized the Silte as a distinct group, allowing them to establish their own sub-region, after a referendum in 2000 where the majority of the Silte people voted for secession . The case was quite complex, especially because of the numerous parties involved (the Silte and Guraghe ethnic groups, the state parliament composed of the various ethnic groups, and the HoF) (Fiseha 2007).
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Arban, E. (2019). The Reference and Ethiopian Constitutionalism. In: Delledonne, G., Martinico, G. (eds) The Canadian Contribution to a Comparative Law of Secession. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-03469-6_8
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