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This paper discusses cluster statehood and its implications on minority ethnic groups. Using the three statehood exercises (South-Western Ethiopian Peoples, Southern Ethiopia and Central Ethiopian regional state) as a case study, this paper highlights the main issues and challenges minority ethnic groups face in the process of statehood exercise. These include the application of the simple majority vote rule in a statehood referendum, the implication of cluster statehood on minority ethnic groups’ rights, the challenge of clustering ethnic minorities without their wishes and restructuring minorities’ ethnic administrative boundaries without a referendum. It concludes that the simple majority followed in statehood referendum makes the role of minority ethnic groups rubber-stamp rather than reflect their real interests. Creating the Central Ethiopian State without a referendum is a flagrant disregard of the constitutional procedure and hinders the full political authority of minority nnp s to decide on their affairs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Policy overlap or functional interface is inevitable in all federations. In Ethiopia, federal sectoral offices depend on the regional state institutions to execute most of their policy, programs, and decisions. The policy overlap and functional interface demands the entrenchment of sectoral forums that facilitate interactions, consultation, and cooperation between federal and state sectoral offices to deal with functional interface and spillover. Yet, formal sectoral forums are not institutionalized. Previous studies reveal that there is no much study that shows how sectoral relations and interactions are conducted in various policy sectors. This article examines sectoral IGR using the practices of selected federal-state and interstate sectoral relations. It reveals that the established formal sectoral IGR forums have remained dysfunctional. Yet, there are several informal sectoral meetings (conferences) between the federal and state sectoral institutions or among state sectoral bureaus. The vertical sectoral meetings are organized by the federal sectoral offices which also set the agenda of the meetings. The federal sectoral personnel are also overrepresented. These matters negate the co-equal status expected in federal-state relations. In most of the sectoral IGR, there are no written rules that regulate their meetings and decision-making procedures except the relations that exist between the Ministry of Health and state health bureaus regulated by an internal bylaw. However, horizontal sectoral relations are regulated by interstate agreements. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Assessment of compensation for personal injury is an intricate part of the law of extra-contractual liability (torts) since such kind of injury results in loss of a job, part of a body, total permanent disability or death. As personal injury may involve irreparable harm, it challenges courts in quantifying reasonable expenses a victim incurs and determining the amount of disability indemnity. By using decisions of the SNNP and Sidama regional courts together with selected Federal Cassation decisions, this article aims to explore practices of compensation assessment for personal injury. The Civil Code, which applies in federal and state courts, requires assessment of damage and award compensation based on a rule of equivalency. Given the generality of this, courts are facing difficulties in making compensation assessments for extra-contractual wrongs that result in personal injury. The problems are related to quantifying reasonable expenses for treatment, determining the amount of disability indemnity, or deciding which kinds of pecuniary losses are included in and excluded from compensation assessment. These problems have caused arbitrary decisions of the courts for personal injury. Variation also exists among court decisions at various levels in determining the extent of harm a claimant sustains and its corresponding compensation. Lack of detailed provisions contributes to such variation, and this calls for legal reform. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Revised Family Code (RFC) of Ethiopia states the circumstance in which a spouse can claim maintenance. These are during a divorce proceeding and, ordinarily, as any person, citing the provisions that explicate the obligation to supply maintenance. The RFC puts spouses at the top rank in the maintenance claimants' order. This raises the question whether this applies to a spouse while the marriage is intact, a spouse while divorce proceedings are in progress, or an ex-spouse. This comment examines the existence (or otherwise) of a legal ground for an ex-spouse to claim maintenance under the RFC. I argue that the issue of maintenance does not arise in relation to a spouse while marriage is intact because the spouses have joint ownership and equal entitlement with regard to their property. Besides, a spouse can invoke temporary maintenance while divorce proceeding is underway due to a petition filed by one of the spouses. It can thus be argued that the obligation to supply maintenance embodied in the Revised Family Code entitles an ex-spouse (who is needy and unable to earn livelihood) to claim maintenance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The rich ethnic diversity in the SNNP region is being managed by different mechanisms of constitutional, institutional, and political practice. Yet, this has not been able to contain new questions of identity, not only seeking for recognition as a distinct ethnic group, but also a desire to establish ethnic territorial administrations. Moreover, ethnic groups that are already recognized are also laying claims to various self-determination rights, inter alia, to territorial autonomy, equitable participation, and the redrawing of internal (ethnic) boundaries. Based on legal analysis of cases from the SNNP region, the article critically discusses the quest for identity and self-determination, and provides an overview of the experience of the region. In dealing with the existing dilemma, we argue that there is a need to maintain the balance between constitutional rights to identity recognition and self-determination with the threat of ethnic and territorial fragmentations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There are two sets of family codes currently applicable in Ethiopia, the Revised Family Code and the family codes of regional states. These sets are compatible on numerous issues of family matters, and are also different on few issues. This comment outlines the major differences between the RFC with that of the SNNP Regional State Family Code. This comment indicates eight areas where the two codes have differences. The RFC has omitted the notion of betrothal whereas the SNNP regional state family law contains detail rules that govern it. Moreover, the RFC is silent regarding marriage celebrated in the cities where the RFC is applicable (i.e. Addis Ababa and Dire Dawa) while the SNNP Regional State Family Code does not apply to marriage celebrated outside the SNNP regional state. There is also variation between the RFC and the SNNP regional state family codes concerning relations in consanguinity and affinity, assessment of compensation following dissolution of marriage, proof of marriage, conditions to claim maintenance as well as salary and pension. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although divorce disrupts the marital bond thereby terminating marital rights and obligations, each parent's obligations to the wellbeing and upbringing of children (custody, visitation rights, and maintenance) persists. This article examines the practice of courts with regard to child custody, visitation rights and obligation to supply maintenance in the Southern Nations, Nationalities and Peoples (SNNP) Regional State. The experience of various court decisions in SNNP Regional State with respect to these matters is explored. Since the laws do not have detailed provisions that regulate the various issues of child custody, visitation and child support, there is inconsistency in judicial decisions. Many decisions do not distinguish between physical and legal custody. As a result, the legal and physical custody of the child usually rest on the same person. With regard to visitation, there is variation in court decisions although the conventional arrangement seems standard visitation. In some cases, courts specify the duration and form of visitation. However, in many cases, courts do not indicate how and when visitation shall be allowed. There are cases where courts overlook the issue of visitation. There is also inconsistency in court decisions with regard to child support. These problems call for detail provisions to ensure consistency and predictability in child custody, visitation and child support decisions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Given the generality of a constitution, it requires amendments in order to enable it to cope up with the socio-economic and political dynamics. As a result, formal constitutional amendment procedures have remained vital mechanisms in this regard. However, the rigidity of formal constitutional amendment procedures and/or the political context of a country have often kept constitutions static and frequently induce politicians to look for alternatives. Informal constitutional amendment mechanisms are thus designed in response to the difficulty of formally amending the constitution. In this sense, the role of non-constitutional mechanisms in the alteration of a constitution is essential. The FDRE Constitution encompasses a constitutional provision that spells out how the Constitution can be amended. However, there has not yet been a single formal constitutional amendment. This article examines instances of actual but unwritten constitutional changes in the course of application that have been occurring in Ethiopia for which formal constitutional amendment cannot account for. These include constitutional changes through constitutional interpretation, or by legislation. The article contends that there are time-honoured practices that regulate and continue to guide the course of the Ethiopian federal state in contradiction to the Constitution. Equally important, party structure also influences the federal distribution of power. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Intergovernmental forums facilitate negotiation, non-hierarchical exchange of information and cooperation between the institutions of the two levels of government. This article explores the experience of the House of Federation, the Ministry of Federal Affairs and sector by sector harmonization in two federal Ministries and their respective regional bureaus. There is lack of an independent institution in charge of consolidating inter-governmental relation (IGR) and this in turn has led to gaps in the regularity, continuity and effectiveness of the interactions. Save for some provisions of the Constitution dictating non-hierarchal relationship between the federal and regional states, the Ethiopian federation is generally characterized by a top-down relationship which can erode the spirit of partnership. Establishing an appropriate legal framework is thus essential to optimize the role of IGR in the Ethiopian federal system. The House of Federation seems the appropriate institution to organize IGR, and if the current dependence on the executive line remains unchanged, the focal point for IGR should be the Prime Minister's Office owing to its enhanced opportunity to give binding decisions and its ability to control the execution of decisions. Excessive reliance on political party lines evokes the question as to what will happen if opposing parties manage to win elections at federal and regional levels, and whether under such settings the collapse of the Soviet Union could be a prophesy to the Ethiopian federalism as well. Such risks call for stable and formal legal and institutional frameworks of IGR toward harnessing centrifugal forces and nurturing unity within diversity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]