By: Abebe Alewond

September, 2010
Chapter-1: Introduction to CEE
1.1. Justification-Why & How the course
comes into Existence
The course Civics and Ethical study originates from
the social nature of human being.
As Aristotle stated that ―man is a social animal”
All human being attain his necessities within the
society, because no one is self-sufficient (Jean Jacob
Rousseau)
Yet, in the interaction, unethical and immoral ways of
behaving could result in conflict of interest.
Such pattern of social interaction is closely related
with and regulated by Ethics
In this regard ethics is mainly concerned with teaching of
people as to how they can live together to lead their life in
harmonious and peaceful manner with other and as to how
they can resolve conflicts of interests peacefully.
 On the other hands, as Plato stated, ―Man is a
political animal‖.
He is egger to politics and political activities
Human beings have to know the workings of politics
that affect their day to day life.
So, Civics and ethical study as a branch of social
science deals with social and political issues of
citizens.
Therefore, the social and political nature of
human beings combined with his moral
limitation, similarities of need and scarcity
of desired objects could results the creation
of civics and ethical education.
1.2. Defining Civics and Ethical Education
Etymologically, the word civics comes from the
Latin word ―civetas‖ which means citizens
Citizen:- are a full legal members of politically
organized unit called state; whereas
Citizenship is the process of acquiring the actual
legal status of membership to a state.
Conceptually, civics can be defined as:
1. a branch of social science which deals with the
rights and duties of citizens.
2. an intensive study and understanding of politically
organized unites called- state.
As Aristotle said ―Man is a political animal‖.
His day-to-day life is affected by politics
As a result, man have to:
know the working of politics
Institutions, norms, principles, and laws
On the other hands, Ethics deals with the behavior of
individuals from the moral points of view as good and
bad.
Thus, Civics and ethics are separate fields of academic
study dealing with citizenship and morality
respectively.
More specifically, while civics is devoted to the study of
the legal and political rules and values governing
the relations between the individual and the state
 whereas;
Ethics deals with those moral rules and values
governing an individual citizen‗s relations with other
individuals and social groups.
In nutshell, it studies the vertical and horizontal
relationships established between state and citizens
as well as among the peoples themselves respectively
1.3. Historical Evolution of Civics Education
The history of civic education dates back to the
earliest thoughts of philosophers such as Socrates,
Plato, and Aristotle in ancient Greek and
Confucius in ancient China.
Informal Civic education started in Athens, Greece.
Democracy and civic education had the same root
and beginning time.
Civic education in these old times helped to create
competent, responsible and active participant
citizens in the then Athenians democracy.
Citizenship education was given in ancient Rome
during the medieval period by religious institutions.
This was because during this time governments and
religions had strong relations in ruling peoples.
Nevertheless, this strong bond of governments and
religious institutions declined through time.
Specifically, in the Renaissance period, which was
between the 14th and 16th century, churches failed
to maintain their supremacy over governments.
Due to this, the significance of religious education in
shaping peoples education became separate
institutes.
This eventually led to the separation of civic
education from religious education
The period of Renaissance resulted in revolutions in
Europe.
Britain Revolution in 1688,
the American Revolution in 1776 all these the
French Revolution in 1789 helped for the ,
emergence of
modern
civics education .
Such revolutions helped for the growth of modern
civic education.
It was in 1916 America began teaching civic
education in the high schools.
How [when] Civic and Ethical Education
developed in Ethiopia?

Civic education had introduced in Ethiopia during

the reign of Hailessillasie.
At that time moral education meant to accept that
the king was God given and that his Kingship was
hereditary.
It was not include human right education
During the Dergu regime, the country‘s leading
political philosophy was the establishment of
communist society.
It was aiming at to make citizens accept the
philosophy of equality and proletarian internationalism.
It did not allow citizens to learn about their human
and democratic rights.
However, disciplines such as Gibre geb and Yepoletika
Timihirt during the Imperial regime and military
regime respectively could be taken as bases for the
current modern civic education in Ethiopia.
Now a day, Civic education is being given to citizens
at all levels of education.
Ethics becomes an integral part of the discipline and
the course is named as Civic and Ethical Studies.
The subject is multidisciplinary in nature and it is
based on the principles of democracy.
Yet, the prevalence of democracy is not a pre-
requisite for the teaching of civic and ethical
education.
 1.4. Similarities and Differences of Civics and
Ethics
Strictly speaking, Civics and Ethics are separate fields
of academy dealing with citizenship and morality
respectively.
 More specifically, while civics is devoted to the study
of the legal and political rules and values governing the
relations between the individual and the state whereas;
Ethics deals with those moral rules and values governing
an individual‗s relations with other individuals and
social groups.
The followings are some areas of similarities and
differences between civics (citizenship) and ethics
(morality).
a) The issues of membership
b) The issues of rights and duties
c) The issues of institutions
The nexus b/n the two
Civics
a) Membership to the state
b) Deal with the vertical and
artificial relation ships b/n
state and people
c) Guiding by Artificial, legal
and political laws
d) Trespassing the law followed
by legal punishment
e) It need the safe guards of
political institutions-state
Ethics
a) Membership to a certain
culturally defined social group
whether there is government
or not.
b) Studies the horizontal natural
relation ships among societies
c) Governing by Natural, moral
and customary law
d) Breaching such norms,
traditions and custom result in
social exclusion
e) Need the protection of social
and religious institutions
A. The Issue of Membership
Membership to a certain groupings is the very
essence of both citizenship and morality.
In the absence of the concept of membership both
lose their fundamental meanings and status as subject
matters to be studied.
 Put differently, citizenship needs some kind of
political and legal arrangement to determine who is
a member of the state and who is not.
B. The Issue of Rights and Obligations
Citizenship entails a set of rights and legal obligations
for individual members.
Thus, the violation or respect of which results in
punishment or reward by the group as well as the
state.
Morality on its part is nothing but a list of values
standardizing bad and good behaviors and dispositions of
the individual by the larger mass or group
C. The Issue of Institutional Protection
Both citizenship and morality are founded on
institutionalized origin, development, operation,
supervision and protection within the community.
An institution here signifies a sociological
establishment and organization of people formed
strictly with a degree of executive right to exercise
coercive power on the individual in the name of
the community.
The institution obtains and maintains its
legitimacy to rule over the behaviors of the
individual member of the group from majority
approval and its capacity to transcend itself across
generations.
The state through the government and all
agencies under it regulate and administer
citizenship on a day-to-day basis;
Whereas social institutions like the church,
family, neighborhood and others inspect morality
and ethical standards more informally.
This institutional protection of citizenship and
morality helps to make individual relations and
actions within the community predictable and
subject to proportional rewards and punishments.
 1.5. Sources of Civic and Ethics

 Civics and Ethics is an interdisciplinary subject.

 It borrows its contents and methods from different
sources.
1. Traditional sources:
2. Documentary sources and
3. Theoretical sources,
1. Social Sources include
a. Family
 In a family, individuals could get what their right and duties are with in the community.
b. Schools
 Schools are also good ways of enhancing knowledge for the students about their rights
and duties.
 The inclusions of civic education in curriculum would help them to promote their
knowledge.
c. Religious institutions
 all religion leaders preach their believers about spiritual doctrines to enable them
distinction between the blessed and blamed actions.
d. Mass media
 Mass media could play a significant role in teaching people about their rights and
responsibility.
2. Documentary sources
Constitution be it written or unwritten
Decision and enactments of legal bodies and
regulations made by different ministries.
The universal declaration of human right (UDHR)
1948
The convention on the right of child (CRC)1989
The convention on the elimination of all forms of
declaration against women (CEDAW) 1979
The convention regulation the refugees and stateless
persons/people.
International convention civil and political rights
(ICCPR)
International convention economic, social and
cultural rights (ICESCP)
Generally, the collection of these domestic and
international documents helps to form the
substantive part of civic and ethic
3. Theoretical sources
 Theory is a systematic presentation of facts.
 These include philosophy, political science, law
economics, geography, sociology, history and
others
a) Philosophy:
 Human kinds, since ancient time, had the desire to
know the essence of nature, the meaning of life,
death, the ups and downs.
 Philosophy continues to investigate those
fundamental issues.
 Thus, both philosophy and civics study about the
accepted values and moralities of people at
different periods and different places to shape the
values, cultural norms and activities of a given
society .
 Therefore, Philosophy has taken as one major
source of civics and ethics.
b.Political science: is the study of the nature,
principles, procedures, structures and purposes of
government; as well as the analysis of political
ideas, institutions, behaviors, and practices.
 deals with power/ authority and legitimacy
 distribution of political power
 activities of governments
 Politics: the process by which people decide who
shall govern and what policies shall be adopted.
Therefore, such issues are the common concern of
political science and civics.
C. Law: deal with the system of rules and regulations
that govern the relations of legal persons in a state
law is a collection of rules laid down by the
government binding all member of the society.
At the same time, Civics deals with
 constitutions,
 legal rights and duties of citizens,
 rule of law and
 human rights
d. Sociology: concerned with social interaction
It can be expressed through talking, playing,
teaching, helping or even fighting
Civic, like sociology, help us to understand the
cultures and norms of different societies.
It help to develop the notion of tolerance, respect in
terms of differences of culture,
It appreciate diversities in many aspects by analyzing
society
e. History: deal with the total experience of human
beings
It studies the past events, to analyzed the present,
and to predict what will happen in the future.
 Enable to understanding of the politico-economic,
and socio-cultural aspects of a given society
 competent and an active citizen can exhibit civic
virtues, patriotism and national pride
appreciation and understanding of how the
present life has come in to being.
1.7. The Need for Ethical Education
For any state, to alleviate its social, cultural, political
and economic problems, civics & ethical education
has a relevant place.
The following societal problems are the most
crucial ones demanding an effective and
constructive study of citizenship and
morality(Civics and Ethics).
a. Large Imbalance between Rights and Duties:
There is unbalance perception about their rights and
duties with in the society.
 While some individuals give priority for their rights
others only emphasize on their duty regardless their
rights.
 Thus, civics and ethics enable the society to
recognize and practice their right and duty with
equal value.
b. Repeated and uninterrupted records of
‘abuses and careless treatment of public wealth
and property
 Most of the time both individuals and government
bodies tend to intentionally and illegally had been
manifested to use, destroy and exploit public goods
and wealth.
 Therefore, civics and ethics is one of the most
effective tool to divert and correct the above
distorted attitude and perception of individuals and
government officials by teaching them about civics
and ethics disposition.
Such as Civility, Duty boundedness (both
individual and collective), Self-discipline, Civic-
mindedness, Open-mindedness, Compromization,
Tolerance, Compassion/generosity and Loyalty to
the Nation and its Constitution
Citizen and Citizenship
The word citizen is both political and legal term.
Every person that is born in a given country is a
citizen of that country unless she/he has given up
her/his citizenship right.
States cannot be understood in the absence of
citizens and citizenship.
In the same way, citizenship cannot be explained
without the state.
Thus, the idea of citizenship is important both to
states and to individuals.
The Concept of citizen and citizenship
 The terms ‗citizen‘ and ‗citizenship‘ are closely
interrelated.
 They imply the existence of some legal relationship
between individuals and the state.
 Both terms are concerned with the status of
individuals in a state and outside a state.
 The term ‗citizen‘ may be defined as an individual
who is a legally recognized member of a given state.
 Each citizen has full and equal rights under the law.
 As citizens of the state, they exercise certain rights
and privileges, which those that are not citizens may
not exercise.
 At the same time, the state also expects certain
duties and responsibilities from its own citizens.
 Such as to:
a) obey its law,
b) provide public service in their skill and profession,
c) provide armed services in defending its sovereignty,
d) participate in economic, social and political activities,
etc.
 Citizenship, on the other hands, refers to the
actual legal status of an individual to be a citizen of
the state.
 It is the official recognition of an individual‘s
integration into the political system.
 Without the status of citizenship, a person would be
‗Stateless‘, i.e., he would not belong to any state.
 Native /National: is natural born as we can say
that he/she is a citizen by birth. Native/natural is
the one who owes his/her citizenship to the fact of
his/her birth with the country referred.
 Citizen: is an individual who is native or
naturalized member of a state.
 Many jurists use the term Citizenship and nationality
interchangeably but there is small difference among
them.
 The term nationality usually denotes ethnic
composition or nationality is membership in a
certain nation for e.g. nationalities like
Amhara,Oromo, Tigre,Gurage, Wolayta etc.
 Where as citizenship is used to show a
membership in a certain nation or a legal bond
between a person and a state
Ways of acquiring citizenship
 The process of acquiring citizenship varies
indifferent countries depending upon the specific
laws of each country.
 There are two broad categories by which people get
access to citizenship of a given state. These are:
1) Citizenship by Birth, and
2) Citizenship by Naturalization
Citizenship by Birth
 Citizenship by Birth is a natural aspect of acquiring
citizenship
 It does not involve social and political requirements.
 It is also called involuntary way of acquiring
citizenship.
 Acquisition of citizenship by birth takes place in
either of the following rules.
a) jus soil
b) Jus Sanguine
 In practice, states rarely use strictly one principle.
 They employ both principles in granting citizenship.
 Jus soil
 Jus soil a Latin word, which means the law of soil
(by place of birth)
 Any person who is born within the sovereign
territory of a particular state is considered as a
citizen of that state except children‟s of diplomat.
 This rule works not only for a child born in areas
where the flag of that state raised, but also on
public ships in the territorial waters of that state ,
on public airbuses, and others.
.
 Birth in the country automatically confers citizenship
regardless of the parents' citizenship or status.
 Thus, wherever the parents come from, the place of
birth determines the status of citizenship of their
children .
 USA, Britain, most other common wealth countries,
and most Latin American countries are some of the
examples that use the rules of Jus soil.
Jus sanguine-law of the blood (Citizenship by
descent )

 Jus Sanguineous is a Latin word, which means the law

of blood (by citizenship of parents).
 Citizenship of a nation is passed on to a child based
upon at least one of the parents being a citizen of
that nation
 In this situation, the universal approach has been for
a child to follow his/her father‘s citizenship.
 And, if problems arise with respect to the father, a child
returns back to his/her mother‘s citizenship.
 Some states provide the citizenship of the mother and
the father of a child as equally important. For example
Ethiopia.
 Even some states, such as Israel, require the citizenship
of the mother as a determinant factor.
 That is, under Israeli citizenship law, a child is
considered Israeli citizen only if his/her mother is an
Israeli citizen.
 Yet, Some states may require both parents of a child to
become their citizen. For example, Bulgaria.
Citizenship by naturalization
 Naturalization is a process in which a state granting a
new citizenship to an alien person via a legal process.
 There are a number of ways of granting citizenship
by naturalization.
 The most common ones include:
a) Marriage: it occurs when individual marrying the
citizen of a given state assumes the citizenship of
his/her partner.
b) Legitimizing (adoption)- is a process by which stateless
children are legally acquire citizenship through
parenthood or guardianship to citizens of that state.
c) Application: involves a direct application of a foreign
individual seeking citizenship in a given state.
 But, any applicant may not be naturalized. An
applicant has to fulfill certain minimum
requirements.
 Thus, citizenship will be granted only when the
individual satisfies the minimum requirements.
 Requirements may vary from country to country.
 Among the requirements, the most common ones
are:
a) lawful entry for permanent residence,
b) good moral character,
c) a certain minimum years of residence in the country,
d) an adult age,
e) non-criminal and
f) the ability to read, write and speak their national
language
Modes of loosing citizenship
 As there are modes of acquiring of citizenship, there are also
circumstances of depriving citizenship.
a) Renunciation: dropping one‘s own citizenship voluntary
and deliberately
b) Release: occurs when applicant has more than one
citizenship and want to dropping one of his citizenship to
maintain the other.
c) Deprivation: it is a disallowance of citizenship because of
proven guilty and committing serious crimes against the
state law and sovereignty.
d) Lapse/expiration: citizenship can be lost if the citizen
stays outsides his/her country for a long period of time
1.8. Goals and objectives of Civics and Ethics
While goals reflect long-term programmatic
purposes, educational objectives refer to short-term
expected learning competencies designed for
students and participants.
Goals
 On the long run, civics and ethics need to acquaint
citizens with the following three basic pedagogical
elements (objectives) :

1. Knowledge: learning about civics and ethics,

2. Skills: learning for civics and ethics and,

3. Attitude: learning in civics and ethics

1. Knowledge: learning about civics and ethics
Although knowledge about human rights necessarily
varies with the maturity and capacity of the society,

in general it includes these essential concepts:

 Civics and ethics provide standards of behaviour in

the family, in school, in the community;

 Every person has human rights and also the

responsibility to respect the rights of others.
These include the right for protection, provisions and
the right to participation, such as to express opinions
in matters that concern oneself.

Other international documents also exist to

implement the protection of human rights, such as the
United Nations Declarations on Human Rights
(UDHR) and the European Convention on Human
Rights (ECHR).
2. Skills: learning for civics and ethics
 Citizens need to acquire the skills that will enable
them to participate in a democracy and contribute
to building a culture of human rights.

 Skills for human rights include:

 Active listening and communication: being able to

listen to different points of view, to express one’s
own opinions and evaluate both;
 Critical thinking: distinguishing between fact and
opinion, being aware of prejudices and preconceptions,
recognizing forms of manipulation;

 Cooperating in group work and addressing conflict

positively;

 Consensus building;

 Participating democratically in activities with peers;

 Expressing oneself with self-confidence;

 Problem solving.
 3. Attitudes to be learned in civics and
ethics include:
 Respect for self and others;

 A sense of responsibility for one’s own actions;

 Curiosity, an open mind and an appreciation of

diversity;

 Empathy and solidarity with others and a commitment

to support those whose human rights are denied;

 A sense of human dignity, of self-worth and of others’
worth, irrespective of social, cultural, linguistic or
religious differences;

 A sense of justice and social responsibility to see that

everyone is treated justly;

 The desire to contribute to the betterment of the school

or community;

 The confidence to promote human rights both locally

and globally
Quality/Competences of Good Citizens
1) Informed and thoughtful: competent
citizen is the one who update his self with
new world innovations and adopted with
his local context.
2) Participate in their communities:
identifying social problem and
establishing solutions for the problem is an
essential features of good citizen
3) Participate in political issues: act in
political matters, such as group problem
solving, public speaking, petitioning and
protesting, and voting.
Demonstrate moral and civic virtue, such as
concern for the rights and welfare of others,
social responsibility, tolerance and respect,
and belief in the capacity to make a
difference.
4) 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
everything for their motherland.
They should also be proud of their identity,
cultural heritage and uphold the values of
the society.
These things can be implanted in to the minds of
students at their impressionable age, in a
psychological and scientific manner.
The students should try to develop national
character based on the virtues of co-operation, love,
sympathy etc
5) Development of global outlook: think globally
act locally
Chapter Two: Ethics and Morality
Human beings as a social animal interact with each others
and need their care and protection to enjoy stable and
secured life.

However, persons are morally limited and sometimes ignore the

interest of others.
So that, the social nature of man kind combined with his moral
limitations, similarity of needs, scarcity of desired materials and stressed
conditions could create a situation of conflict among members of a
given society.

Due to this fact, ethical and moral codes of conducts are

necessary to fix and minimize such conflict of interests.
2.1. Definitions of Ethics
The word ‗Ethics‘ is derived from the Greek word ―Ethos‖ which

originally had used to denote a place where people live together.

However, as time gone, it acquired some other meanings such as:

Custom/tradition: It refers regularly performed act according to

the particular living style of culturally defined society.

 It arise by repetition of the same kind of act in the same way in the

long period of time

Temperament/moderation: controlling self from executing bad

action,

Character

Ways of thinking

Now a day, however, Ethics become a broad scientific study or

discipline, which study about morality

The meanings of morals and ethics do overlap.

 Occasionally the term ethics is used interchangeably with

morals/morality.

 Yet strictly speaking they are two different technical terms.

 Morals and morality are about personal behavior, ethics more

grandly philosophical.
Morality
Guides the moral judgement of the day to day actions of people
as good and bad.
 Refers to code of conduct itself or it is concerning with the conformity of
human behavior to the established code of conduct.
 Morality involves a normative judgment that indicates what we
ought to do and should not do.
 If an action conforms to the established code, it is called moral, if
not immoral.
 Morality refers to the principle and standards of right and wrong.
 For instance. If a person believes that it is wrong to lie, and
telling the truth is right then such a belief is a moral code of
conduct that shapes the act of a person
 Generally speaking, the specific principles and standards of
conduct that guides the action of individuals is the concern of
morality; whereas the study and analysis of these principles and
the actions is the concern of the field of the study of ethics.
Ethics
− Ethics involves the study of those standards and
moral judgments which people create.
− It is science of morality that concerned with moral
judgments of human actions from human moral
point of view.
− It questions that what constitute an action good or
bad, right or wrong
Comparison
Morality
 Morals:…conforming to
standard of right behavior.
 Morality is a categorical imperative
• It is about conforming the
established standards of
behaviours
• Morals are dictated to us by
either society or religion.
• We are not free to think and
choose
Ethics
a  Ethics:…choosing principles of
conduct as a guiding philosophy.
 Ethics is an hypothetical
imperative
• With ETHICS there’s a freedom
to “think and choose” your
personal philosophy for guiding
the conduct of your life.
• You are not dependent on the
judgment of society or religion
“based in fear” when making
your ethical decisions.
2.2. Contending Theories of Ethics
 For the purposes of better understanding ethics can be divided
into two ethical theories :
1) Normative ethics
2) Non-normative ethics
2.2.1. Normative ethics
„Normative‟ means something that „guides‟ or „controls‟
It aims at to discover what should be the moral standards that are
supported by the best reasons
Normative ethics concerned with developing rational rules, moral
principles or standards of conduct to govern the activities of human
beings.
Again, there are two areas of normative ethics:
a) applied and
b) general Normative Ethics
1) Applied Normative ethics: is the attempt to explain and justify
positions on specific moral problems, such as sex outside marriage,
capital punishment, euthanasia, and reverse discrimination.
2) General normative ethics: attempts to determine precisely what
moral standards to follow so that our actions may be morally right
or good.
 We can get two broad theories in genera normative ethics; they
are
1) Teleological ethics (consequentialist) theory
2) Deontological ethics (non-consequentialist) theory
Teleological (consequentialist) ethics

Teleological ethics derived from the word ‗teleo‘,

which literally means ―the theory of ends or
purposes.”
Teleological theorists maintain that the morality of
an action is determined by its consequences that the
action brings about.
 ―A right action is one which has good consequences‖
―The end justifies the means‖.
An action is judged as right or wrong, moral or
immoral acceptable or unacceptable depending on
what happens as a result of it.
The three important consequentialist theories are:
a) Egoism
b) utilitarianism
c) Altruism
Egoism
The term ‗egoism‘ comes from the Greek word ego ―I‖ and refers
to self-concern.
 Maximize pleasures and minimize pains of those affected by the
action
 According to this ethical theory, the morality of an action is
determined in reference to the doer of the action.
 When there is a conflict of interests, the choice is the one that
which promote the interests of the self.
Thus, such kind of perception and self-
centeredness always leads to it corruption.
Egoistic hedonism can be seen in two aspects:
1) Cyrenaicism
2) Epicureanism
1) Cyrenaicism: It focuses or interested in the lower
pleasure.
The prime concern is to enjoy as much bodily
pleasure as immediately as possible- Sensual pleasure.
It says double your pleasure, double your fun, eat,
drink, be merry/Happy to day; for tomorrow we may
die.
2) Epicureanism: there is no life after death and soul made
out of atoms like everything else, disintegrates and
disperses after life.
 So they advise us to live pleasant life as possible.
 Epicureanism is something quite different from
Cyrenaicism.
 It is not the pleasure of the body but the pleasure of the
mind
 Not the accumulation of immediate pleasure so much as a
life time of moderate pleasure.
 Health of the body and peace of the mind is the epicurean
idea of the life time pleasure.
Utilitarianism (Social hedonism)

The most well known teleological theory

―Greater good to the greater number‖
An action is morally right if and only if, the result of
an action promotes the greatest amount of happiness for
the greatest number of people
We should always act so as to promote the greatest
balance of pleasure and to reduce pain.
.
However, unlike egoism, utilitarianism considers
not only oneself, but all others that might be affected
Our own happiness does not count more than
others.
Unlike altruism, utilitarianism considers sacrifice is
a waste if it does not result in increased happiness.
It is an ethical theory put forward by Jeremy
Bentham (1748-1832) and Stuart Mill (1806-1873.
Altruism
An action is morally good if and only if, the result of
an action benefits the whole society except the doer of
an action-the doer of the action is out of the benefit.
Moral actions are motivated by sympathy and
compassion to others especially the disadvantaged
section of the society.
It is an important virtue of good citizen
Deontological ethics (Non-consequentialist theory)
It derived from the Greek word, deon, which refers to the
study of moral commitment or duty.
 Morality is a matter of duty.

Whether something is right or wrong doesn‘t depend on its

consequences.
―the means justifies the end “
The slogan of much of deontologist is that ―the means
justifies the end
Rightness of action is determined by the motivation which
prompts that action.
―A right action is one which is motivated by the right sort of reason‖
Divine Command Theory
A divine Command Theory state that the moral
goodness of an action is depends on the divine power
and order.
God knows what is best for us-so that we must follow him.
Hence, for many Christians, killing another human
being is wrong simply because it violates the God's
6th commandment.
 In short, the rightness or wrongness of an act is
determined by the truthful pronouncements of an outside
authority.
that is to say:
"It is wrong because God or one of God's designated
spokespersons said it is wrong."
Kant’s Categorical Imperative
The ethical theory of Immanuel Kant (1724—1804)
is regarded as the most important deontological
ethic in Western philosophy.
According to him, for morally right action, one must
be willing to have everyone act in the same way, i.e.
qualify as a universal law.
For him morality is a matter of ought or obligation.
Immanuel Kant argued that morality is founded on
reason and that it always contrary to reason to
break a moral rule.
Moral obligations take the form of categorical
imperatives not hypothetical imperatives.
One must act ethically because of the autonomy of
one’s will (intent) and not because of pressure,
inclination or external forces
Basic principles
1. The Categorical Imperative: act only according to a
rule which can be consistently be desired as a
universal law.
 An imperative is just a command.
It is irrational and immoral not to obey it.
2. Kingdom of ends: always treat a rational agent as an
end and never treat as a means.
Prima facie duty

W. D. Ross (1877–1971): British scholar who held that our

moral experiences are too complex to be reduced to the
principle of utility or the categorical imperative.
Basic arguments
a) We have various duties that oftentimes come into conflict with each
other.
b) There are no universal rules for the resolution of conflicts of duties.
c) Different situations generate different priority orders of duties.
Prima facie obligation can be overridden by a more important
duty in specific circumstances.
For example: .
We may have to override the promise and favor the more
important duty to help the injured person.
But in some other circumstances we ought to do the opposite.
Situationalists claims that morality of an action depends
on the circumstances, not on application of law to the
case.
Prima facie duties are concerned with acting in
accordance with an overriding obligation as indicated by
the circumstances involved.
It is on a position trying to mediate Kant‘s categorical
imperative and utilitarianists‘ point of view.
Basic prima facie obligation

Nonetheless, Ross thinks, we can sketch some obvious basic forms of

duties that are can be applicable anywhere in common.
1) Duties of fidelity.
2) Duties of reparation/compensation
3) Duties of gratitude/respect.
4) Duties of justice.
5) Duties of beneficence.
6) Duties of self-improvement.
7) Duties not to injure others.
All of the above are what he identifies as non-reducible categories of
duty.
2.2.2. Non- Normative ethics
Non-normative ethics concerned with factual investigation of
moral behavior and analysis of the meaning of ethical terms used in
moral discourse.
 Like normative ethics, non-normative ethics consists of two
fields:
a) Scientific or descriptive ethics, and
b) Meta ethics.
Scientific or Descriptive Study

Descriptive Ethics is an empirically based, which aims to

discover and describe the moral beliefs of a specific culture.
It attempt to explain how moral attitudes and codes differ
from society to society, investigating and describing the
values and behaviors of different societies.
Thus, anthropologists tell us that Eskimos used to abandon
their elderly on the ice and allow them to die of starvation
Some African tribes also kill their infants twins and require
that a man marry his brother‘s widow.
Meta Ethics

 Meta ethics is the highly technical discipline investigating the

meaning of ethical terms, including a critical study of how ethical
statements can be verified.
 Accordingly, Meta ethicists would be more concerned with the
meanings of such words as good or bad than with what we think
is good or bad.
 If you said, for instance, that the act of euthanasia is right, the
Meta ethicist might ask; just what do you mean by right?
Personal Ethics and Professional Ethics
Personal ethics
 All human beings as rational creatures expected to exhibit
certain personal principles of ethics. These principles of personal
ethical are values which are expected to be possessed by all
individuals in their life and contribute a lot for a smooth
interaction among individuals and peace full co-existence of a
society.
a) These principles of personal ethics include:
Concern for the wellbeing of others
b) Honesty
c) Fairness compliance to the law
d) Benevolence (doing good)
e) Refusing to take unfair advantage
f) Respecting the autonomy of others
 These are some of personal ethical values which we all expected
to possess and manifests. As mankind became civilized, tasks
began to be divided among different
Professional Ethics
 The term profession refers to the knowledge, skill, and ability,
which can be acquired through formal educational institutions
such as universities, colleges and training centers. Given this
definition, all activities undertaken by an individual cannot be
qualified as professions.
 An activity to be qualified as profession should be carried out by
one who has advanced education, knowledge, and skill. The
knowledge and skills involved in professions is predominantly
mental or intellectual.
 Professional Ethics: refers to a set of standard of conducts that
enables professionals to distinguish what is right from what is
wrong using morality as standard of evaluation. Professional
ethics serves as parameter by which action and behavior of a
professional can be judged as right or wrong. Each profession as a
profession has its own codes of standard and principles of ethics.
 Different professions may have different codes of ethics and rules
of conduct with in which their professional‘s actions and
behaviors are judged as right or wrong against their profession.
But there are also common codes of ethics and rules of conduct
that must be universally applied across all professions.
a) Punctuality: a state of being strictly observant of an
appointed or regular time. It is a belief that across all
professions a worker must always beon time both to come to
work place and during the entire work process.
b) Honesty and integrity: refers to the art of telling the
truth. Employers/ institutions expect their workers to be
honest. Thus, when someone is employed somewhere for a
certain job of a given profession, he/she has already entered
agreement to his time, knowledge and skill to an institution
and hence his/her time, skill and knowledge do not solely
belong to him/her but also the institution. So, there is a need
to be honest on how to use these resources.
c) Confidentiality: a desired tendency of a professional to keep
some information that should be kept secret. For example, in the
case of medical profession this would entail that a nurse/doctor
has to keep secret all the information regarding patients.
d) Impartiality (Non–Partiality): an ethical condition in which
a professional is expected to treat all clients equally during
service delivery without any forms of discrimination. E.g a
teacher (an instructor) should treat his/her students equally
on the basic of their academic performance or achievement
regardless of their respective sexual, ethnic, religious etc
grounds. And the list goes on.
[Bio]Medical Ethics
Medical ethics is based on a series of ethical principles that are
particularly relevant to medical practice and patient care.
 The principles of medical ethics were first developed by Tom
Beauchamp and James Childress in their 1979 book called-
Principles of Biomedical Ethics
Medical Ethics is the application of general ethical principles to
ethical issues.
 In modern sense, medical ethics involves the physician-patient
relationship with the dramatic change from paternalism to
autonomy.
 It is about informing the patient, obtaining informed consent,
and relating to the patient as an active partner in decision-making
 The basic concept of medial ethics is that the physician has a
moral and (at times legal) obligation to act for the patient‘s good,
using the most up-to-date information.
 The question is how to establish that ―good,‖ who defines it, and
what are the components of medical ethics.
 One of the most important areas of discussion in ethics is the
doctor-patient relationship
Objectives of medical Ethics
The main objective of medical-ethics is to improve patient health
care condition of the people.
 Because of this, medical-ethics has strong relation with healthy
care philosophy.
 The philosophy of health care has given in emphasis on the
protection of the rights to life through medical service
 The right to life and well-being of persons would be threated by
diseases and early death.
 The only means of protecting these problem and ensure the right
to life of a person is providing proper health care services to the
people.
 Therefor, the professional ethical service of doctor and nurse is
one of the way in which people exercise their natural rights to
preserve their life.
 People enjoy proper health care service, when doctors treat and
approach their patients ethically.
 However, there are cases in which doctors and nurses fail to treat
their patients ethically and properly.
 These happen due to disrespecting patients, carelessness, lack
of punctuality, medical negligence, ordering inappropriate
medication without proper knowledge of patent’s case and
etc.
 In order to tackle these problems, doctors and nurses have to
guide their professional service according to the standard moral
rules or professional codes of conduct.
 If the moral codes od conduct are respect by doctors and nurses
their professional service will be appropriate, if not it is
inappropriate.
Even though there are a number of lists of medical principles,
basically one can classify them in to five major medical
principles/ ethics.
1) Respect for Autonomy,
2) Beneficence,
3) Non-Maleficence, and
4) Justice
5) Confidentiality
This principle give a full authority for patients to decide what is
best for them.
 To do so patients need to be informed by physicians about the
situation they are, so that they pass informed sound decision
about their health issues.
 In fact, previously such decisions were exclusively left for
doctors-which is called the principle of Paternalism
 Paternalism is an approach in which the physician chooses the
treatment for the patient because the physician‘s professional
knowledge, experience and objectivity best qualify him to judge
the ideal treatment for the patients.
 This attitude assumes that the physician and the patient have a
common interest but that the doctor is better equipped for the
necessary decision-making with minimal or no patient
involvement.
Criticisms of Paternalism
a) It affects the basic rights of the patient to decide for himself
what should be done with his body.
b) Many decisions are not purely medical but involve personal and
cultural aspects in which the physician has no particular
expertise.
 Such decisions require the patient‘s input.
a) Many diagnostic and therapeutic decisions involve ethics,
secular law or religious issue.
 For example, the decision as to whether or not to abort a fetus is
not a medical one, but an ethical, legal and religious one.
On the other hand, the main criticism of pure autonomy is the
relegation of the physician to the role of a technical consultant,
with little influence on the patient‘s decision, which is often
based on a lack of full understanding of his condition.
 Such a decision may cause unnecessary and unavoidable harm to
the patient.
 Autonomy is not only the privilege of the patient.
 It is universally agreed that the physician‟s autonomy, too, must be
respected.
 A physician may refuse a patient‘s request for a therapy that has
no scientific or rational basis, especially if it may be harmful to
the patient.
 A compromise or middle position between paternalism and
autonomy is one in which the physician provides the patient with
the relevant information, the physician and patient discuss the
medical and ethical issues and then arrive at a joint decision.
 Such approach preserves the patient‟s autonomy on the one hand,
and the physician‟s obligation to advise the patient about the best
decision, on the other hand.
 This is considered to be the best system, permitting responsible
decisions according to the relevant individual circumstances
while preserving the obligations and rights of both patient and
physician.
2. The principle of non-Maleficence
 The principle of non-Maleficence refers to the duty to refrain
from causing harm.
 It says that, Medical doctors ought not to inflict evil or harm
against their patients.
 More specifically, it includes the following moral rules:
a) Do not kill
b) Do not cause pain/suffering
c) Do not incapacitate others
d) Do not deprive others of the goods of life
3. The principle of beneficence
Medical practitioners should act in the best interests of the
patient.
Doctors have a moral obligation to do/promote good and to help
others.
 The Principle of Beneficence and the Principle of Non-
Maleficence will often need to be applied together.
 Combining these two principles requires both an identification of
the risks and benefits of a particular intervention and a
comparison of the harms done, the harms prevented or removed,
and the goods promoted for the patient.
 The result of these considerations will determine what is in the
patient‘s best interests.
4. The principle of Justice
The principle of justice underlies concerns about how
medication benefits and burdens should fairly distributed for
the clients.
 For example, is it fair that two patients, otherwise similarly
situated, are treated differently by practitioners because of one is
affluent (rich) and the other is indigent (poor)?
 According to this principle, justice requires that equals be
treated equally, and unequals be treated unequally on the basis of
proportions to their relevant inequality.
5. The principle of confidentiality
 practitioners have a moral and legal duty to keep personal
secrets and medication history's of the patients
It implies that a patient‘s case should not be revealed to any one
with out the permissions of patients.
Chapter III: Society, State and Government

3.1. Definition and attributes of society

Understanding the idea of the state must begin with explaining
the meaning of society, because the state and society has strong
relationships.
 Society is a social organization encompassing a complex web of
social relationships.
 Despite various scholars define society differently; the following
are some of common definitions given for it.
Thus, society is:

 An organized group of people living together in a given territory

having their own social, cultural and economic interactions.
 A collection of individuals living in a certain country for long
period of time.
 However, Society is a broad term that consists of state which in
turn consists of government at its heart.
Basic features of society

A simple collection of individuals may not be sufficient

to be called a society. We call groups of people as a
society when its member:
1.Live together for a long period of time,
2.have common origin and destiny.
3.Share common culture, traditions, values interests,and
life styles
4.Have a feeling of identity and belongingness/ the feeling
of oneness.
Society vs. state
Society
 Social organization
 a natural and an innate
institution
 Society is an end by itself
 the violation of the norms
of the society followed by
social sanction, i.e. social
exclusion.
State
 Political organization
 an artificial institution-it
was made when it was
needed
 The state exists for the
society as a means for its
end
 The violation of the laws of
the state is followed by
legal punishment
3.2. State
Meaning of a state
State is a sovereign politically organized unit.
When society is politically organized, it forms
the state.
It is more explained and visible via its
attributes such as population, territory,
sovereignty and government.
Elements of the state

 Conventionally, we may think of the state as a

country with its people and institutions.
Nevertheless, the idea of the state goes beyond
this.
The state consists of the following main
elements and qualities:
 Major Attributive/Elements of State

Population

Territory STATE Gov’t

Sovereignty
1. Population: Population refers to peoples living in a defined territory of a state.
 A state is an organization of human beings living together as a community.
 The population of a state comprises all individuals who, in principle, inhabit the
territory in a permanent way.
 It may consist of nationals and foreigners.
 The population of a state need not be completely homogeneous in culture,
language, race or otherwise.
 The existence of a state is not determined by the size of its population.
 However, state requires its own people who live within a defined territory
permanently.
 large number of population like China, India, Indonesia, Japan, while other states
like Vatican, Malta, Djibouti and etc.
 However the quality and composition of a given state population may have a
considerable impact on its economic development and national defense.
 No state unless people live together an associated life.
 The question is how much people constitute state? Ancient
writers said much stress on it.
 Plato -an ideal state around 5, 040.
 Aristotle -considered 100,000 too many.

 Rousseau- 10,000 would be an ideal number.

 The number of population is one of the factors that influencing
the power and maintenance of state.
2. Territory: It is the landmass and its natural and
human resources which are administered by a state.
 Territory is a geographical area that is owned and

controlled by a government or country to exercise

state‘s sovereignty
 modern state undoubtedly requires a definite'
portion of earth's territory over which it can have
undisputed authority.
 The size, location and shape of a state do not put

impact for its survival, yet it may have an impact on

its development and security.
3.Government: It is also another
important aspect of a state.
It is a system of administration in which
the policies and intentions of a state is
realized.
In other words, government is the
executive agent that acts in the name of
the state and its people
4.Sovereignty: sovereignty implies the final authority of the state
over all matters.
 It has two dimensions: internal and external aspects of
sovereignty.
1. Internal sovereignty of the state denotes the ability of the polity
to exercise its power over its population within its jurisdiction.
 2. On the other hand, external sovereignty implies its ultimate
authority to regulate/ conduct foreign relation at the
internal arena without the influence of the rest states.
3.3. Theories on the origin and development of state

 The exact origin of the state is not yet precisely known and
continues to be a subject for scholarly discussions and debates.
 However on the basis of the existing knowledge, the following
contending theories are used to explain the nature, origin and
purposes of the state.
1. The Natural or Evolutionary or
Anthropological theory

 While divine origin theory is a matter of faith, the genetic

theory is based on sociological facts.
 State is an eventual extension of the family.
 The first group of collective human life is the family or the
household, the last is the state as family is governed by the elder,
 State

Society Family

Tribe Clan
This theory claims that the state gradually and slowly developed
out of earlier forms of settled human communities, such as the
family, the clan and tribe.
 State is seen as natural to organized and settled social life.
 According to this theory the state is not only necessary for
human as a social animal, but also it is a means whereby man
could achieve the ‗Good life‘
2. 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.
God intentionally created the state as a punishment
against Adams for his faller in the holy Garden of
Eden.
The Rulers were regarded as God`s own
representatives on earth.
It is Gods will that in human society some are born to
rule while others are born to be ruled.
3. The social contract theory

This theory holds that the state is the result of a deliberate and
voluntary agreement on the part of primitive men emerging
from a ―state of nature”
A.Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679)
B. John Locke (1632-1704)
C.Jean Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778)
4. The Force Theory

The origin of state is a matter of conquest; one group conquers

by force and the leader of the victor`s assumes ultimate
authority.
 War of conquest resulted in the occupation of more and more
territories and lead to the rise of states.
 Thus, the state is primarily created by the use of physical force.
 It is created through a process of conquest and coercion of the
weak by the strong.
 Hence, military might and physical strength of society is
considered to be paramount importance for the creation and
consolidation of the state.
5. The Marxist Theory

Marxism believed that in pre-class society people were lived

communally.
 The state is originated from the split of society in social classes
with sharp and polarized economic interests.
 The rise of the state with its agent (the government) is to make
law and therefore directly related with the emergence of private
property and the need to safeguard it.
 Thus, the state in its function is a biased political organization
which stands for the interest of the rich vis-à-vis the poor.
 The disappearance of private property and antagonistic social
class, the state will wither away
3.4.Structure of the State
The structure of the state basically determined by the
distribution of power between the state and its sub units.
 Here, power is a key variable in deciding the type and nature of
state.
 State structure, therefore, signifies the power relation or balance
of power between the central state and its constituting parts/
regional states.
 Accordingly, there are three types of state structure which
include:
1) Unitary state structure
2) Federal state structure
3) Confederal state structure
 The three forms of state structures are basically distinguished
by the degree of power shared between central and local levels of
government.
1. Unitary State Structure
 In unitary states, authority and power of the state is
concentrated in the hand of the central government.
 All major policies and principles of administration originate from
the center.
 Here, there is only one source of authority from the center.
Sophisticate
 The local or regional levels of government are exclusively
accountable to the central government.
Features of unitary state

 Unitary State is characterized by:

a. Monopolization of power at the center: Local units are serving as
administrative agents through which the central government can
have, communicate and implement its policies.
b. Absence of subsidiary sovereign local units: The local unites and
their existence is mainly dependent on the interest of the central
government.
 The central government may challenge their existence, increase
or decrease their powers.
However not all unitary states have the same political structure
and decentralization of power.

- There are unitary states that allow decentralization to the local

units but the power and existence of the units is not legally or
constitutionally rooted /established.
 Merits and demerits of a unitary state
Merits
a) Uniform application of law, policy and
administration throughout the country.
b) Absence of conflict of power
jurisdictions.
c) It is relatively cheap: since there is no
duplication of personnel and work so
that it is not costly.
d) It is simple in structure and less
expensive because of absence of
duplication of governmental
departments.
e) It is suitable for small number and
homogenous society.
Demerits
a) It denied the rights to self-
administration of local units
b) The local populations feel as
they are neglecting by the
central government.
c) The local peoples are also
exposed for extra cost for
transportation to march to the
center whiles the local rulers
unable to solve their cases.
d) It makes the central
government to be over crowded
by many civil and criminal
cases of local units.
2. Federal state structure

 Power is formally divided between the central government and

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 by the
constitution.
Basic Features of Federal states
a) Dual government:
b) Decentralization/ devolution of power:
c) The ideology of Constitutionalism: The powers of the federal
and regional units are made by the constitution.
 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.
Modes of creating federalism

Any federal arrangement can be created in one of the two ways:

i. Coming together federalism-federalism through aggregation
ii. Holding together federalism- Federalism through
disaggregating
 i. Coming Together Federalism- federalism through aggregation:
 Coming together federation emerges when sovereign states, for
security purposes and/or purposes of governmental efficiency,
decide voluntarily to form a federal system.
 E.g., America, Switzerland, and Australia
ii. Holding together federalism- Federalism through disaggregating
(Devolution):
 'Holding together 'federations are the outgrowth of a consensual
parliamentary decision to preserve a unitary state by creating a
multi-ethnic federal system.
 It 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.
 E.g., Ethiopia, India, Belgium, Canada, Spain and Nigeria
Advantages and disadvantage of federalism
Advantages Disadvantages
a. It create balance of power: It affords
opportunity to small and weak states to a) Conflict of power jurisdictions:
unite into a powerful state without losing Possibility of overlap of
their independent existence. jurisdiction between the two levels
b. It is viable for large states: with of governments
heterogeneous population (with ethnic, b) It is expensive: it may requires
racial, cultural and linguistic diversities). ample of economic resources to
c. It allows sharing of responsibility: By the manage two sets of governments,
distribution of power the central c) It may create weak federal
government is relieved of the burdens and
government by dividing internal
bottlenecks created by heavy
sovereignty
administration.
 There is a possibility of danger of
d. It allows the right to self-administration:
By giving local independence to the people
secession
of the units, it stimulates their interest in d) Requires much more educated
public affairs. man power
3. Confederal state structure

 It is a union/association created by sovereign and independent

states for the purpose of some common identified objectives.
 These are free trades between the member states; defense pact
or agreement, common policy in the international relations.
 The member states are independent so that the union does not
have power to put any impact against the internal interest and
affairs of the member states.
 Thus, the decision of the union is the sum total
pronouncements of each sovereign constituent state. E.g., AU,
UN, WTO and
3.5. Government
 Government is a group of individuals and
institutions authorized to formulate public policies,
conduct the affairs of the state and implement its
policies and strategies.
 It is machinery or the brains of the state.
 It is an administrative wing of a state.
 It is the agents of the state that responsible for the
overall administrative affairs of the country.
 It is the executive agent that acts on behalf of the
state and its people.
Function of Government
1. Maintenance of law and order in a society
2. Protection and security of citizens rights
3. Providing services and welfare to citizens
4. Regulating the Economy
5. Providing services and welfare to citizens
6. Protecting the Weak/ the rights of minority
Arrangements of Government
There are two level of power separation,
1. Vertical= central and regional level,
2. Horizontal= legislative, executive and
judiciary.
Vertical= Central and Regional level,

There are different sets of power that are divided

among the two levels of governments.
 These are:
a. Exclusive,
b. Concurrent and
c. Residual powers.
 a. Exclusive power: it refers to the power that
exclusively left to either the federal government
or the local units.
 Some of the powers that are given to the federal government
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 The power that is left to the regional governments.ሥነ-ዜጋ ና
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 b. Concurrent /shared power: is the common
jurisdiction of powers and functions in which both
the federal and regional governments are
responsible.
 To levy and collect taxes;
 Promoting cultural development;
 Environmental protection;
 Tourism;
c. Residual power: The powers that is not
constitutionally explained and give for either of
governments- it is futurity anticipates issues as a
result of technological and human advancement.
 And these issues are left to the regional units.
System of government
 Considering the nature of relationship existing between the
legislative and executive branches of government, one may
classify forms of democratic governments into two; namely,
1. parliamentary, and
2. presidential.
1) Parliamentary forms of Government.

 It is a form of government in which the primary responsibility of

leadership are vested in the hands of the chief executive
(prime minister) who is elected from and by the members of the
legislature organ of government.
 There is fusion of power and personnel with in the legislative and
executive branch of government.
 Legislature makes the law, prime minister enforces the law.
 Cheek and balance is not clearly defined
 Most or all members of the cabinet (council of ministers)
are usually members of the parliament/ assembly.
In parliamentary system, the executive branch is subordinate to
the legislature.
 People choose a legislature, which it in turn selects the executive
body (the cabinet + prime minister) entirely or largely from
its membership.
 The United Kingdom, India, and Canada are few of the
examples.
 a) Fusion of power
b) Absence of terms of office for the P.M +
Council of ministers: In other words, an
electoral term of the PM is not constitutionally
fixed.
c) All decisive political power is vested under the
PM
d) The existence of two heads
1. Head of the state (president)-who is non-political
executive
2. Head of government (the prime minister)- political
2) Presidential forms of government

A Presidential system of government is a form of government

which is chiefly characterized by strict separations of
powers between the legislative and executive branches of
government.
Key distinguishing features
a. Powerful president: the leadership of the executive is in the hands of the
president who is elected by the people.
b. Double election- the electorate in presidential systems conduct two election;
1. to elect their representatives in the assembly or legislature, and
2. to elect the person to hold the position of executive.
c. Separation of the legislative from the executive: This implies that the
president and his ministers cannot be members of the legislature.
 In case the president appoints a member of legislature as his minister, he has
to leave his/her legislature membership.
 It is for this reason that the president and his ministers do not take part in the
deliberations of the legislature.
d. Fixed term of office for the president:
 He/she cannot be elected for more than two terms of six years.
Chapter 4: Democracy

 Etymologically, the term ‗Democracy‘ originated from two

Greek words, ‗demos‘ and „kratos‘ meaning people and rule
respectively.

 Democracy, therefore, gives the idea of rule by people or

government by the people.
 A form of government, which is conducted, with the free
consent of the people.
 A system of government in which supreme authority rests on the hand
of people.
 The government of the people, by the people, and for the people
(Abraham Lincoln).
 Majority rule in which minority rights are protected.
 A system of decision-making in which the leaders are more or less
responsible to their deeds.
The origin and Development of Democracy
 Democracy first originated in Athens in the 5thcentury B.C.
In the 750‘s B.C., Athens was transformed form monarchy
/aristocracy into democracy.

 This kind of change of administration took place in all the

cities in Greek.

 Latter, this change of administration also took place in

Rome.
Athenian Democracy has long been taken as a fundamental
source of inspiration for modern western political thought.
 However, the Athenian democracy was not allowed the
entire inhabitant to participate in their political, social and
economic affairs.
 it excluded :
a. Women
b. Foreigners / aliens and
c. A substantial slave population.
Ways of exercising Democracy

 There are two ways to exercise democracy.

 These are:
a) Direct/Pure democracy and
b) Indirect/Representative democracy.
Direct Democracy

 Direct democracy is a democratic system in which all citizens can

participate without intermediary elected body to make public
decisions.
 Direct democracy is more practical in small community, organizations,
parties, local units /kebeles, trade unions,
 In direct democracy, members can meet in a single room to discuss
issues and arrive at decisions by consensus or majority vote.
 The Athenian democracy was the best example of this direct
democracy.
Indirect /Representative Democracy

 In this kind of democracy, the people could elect their

representatives in the government.
 This is due to the large number of population a country may
have for the practice of direct democracy.
 The elected members have the responsibility to pass political
decisions on behalf of the people.
 When these people, however, cannot do their jobs, the
people have the right to reelect other members.
4.4. Principles of Democracy
 Today, the concept of democracy has developed fully
compared to the kind of democracy exercised before.

 Due to this, it is governed by principles. Democratic principles

are indicators or markers that denote that a particular country is
on the road to democracy.
 Here are some of the major principles that are considered as pillars of democracy.

 These include:

1. Sovereignty of the people /popular sovereignty/

2. Majority rule and minority rights
3. Free and fair election
4. Multi-party system
5. Equality before the law
6. Tolerance of diversity
7. The principles of Accountability and Transparency
8. Separation of power
9. Rule of law and fair trial
Approaches of Understanding Democracy
 There are two views of understanding democracy:
a) Substantive and
b) Procedural views.
Substantive Views of Democracy

The substantive view concentrates on what a government

actually does, that is, the policies it makes should fulfill
democratic ideals.
 A substantive theorist would not recognize a decision that
violated those ideals as "democratic"
 Though a country may allow all citizens of age to vote; this
characteristic does not necessarily qualify it as an element of a
substantive democracy.
 In a substantive democracy, the general population plays a real
role in carrying out its political affairs, i.e., the state is not merely
set up as a democracy but it functions as one as well.

 This type of democracy can also be referred to as a functional

democracy.
Procedural Views of Democracy

 Procedural democracy emphasizes the principles of

universal participation, political equality, and majority rule.
 This type of democracy is characterized by voters choosing
to elect representatives in free elections.
 It sets forth principles that describe how government
should make decisions and address three distinct
questions:
1) Who should participate in decision-making?
 Every one
2) How much value/s should weight the votes of each
participant?
 Equal value
3) How many votes are needed to reach decisions?
 The votes of the majority or 50+1
 Of course, there is no simple answer to these
questions and as such there are various perspectives on
those issues.
 Chapter-5: The concept of Constitution
Etymologically, constitution derives from a Latin
term ―constitute” which means “to make up, order or
form” states any significant law for an organization or
institution mostly by the Roman emperor.
Latter, the inauguration of laws of the state
associated with constitution.
It was Aristotle who first separated government law and
any other ordinary law and assigned “constitution” to the
law of a state.

197
Strictly speaking, constitution has not a single
accepted definition or meaning, because various
scholars define it in different ways based on the
discourse they identified themselves and the context
they used.

198
 Definitions
Accordingly, the following statements can be the
possible definitions of constitution.
Constitution is:-
a) The way of life the state has chosen for itself-
(Aristotle);
b) the aggregate of laws and customs under which the
life of the state goes on (Lord Bryce);

199
c) The collection of principles according to
which the powers of the government,
the rights of the governed and the relation
between the two are adjusted (C F Strong);
d) A body of fundamental rules, written or unwritten,
which determines the organization or
structure of the government, distribute
powers and determines the relationship among
the organs of the government;

 200
e) A brief and general out lined document;
f) A document that contains the belief , values
and laws of a nation;
g) A basic law of any state that defines and regulate
the internal and external relation of the
state
h) A manuscript that bears the a power map of a
state;

201
Constitutionalism
What does it mean ‗‗constitutionalism‘‘?
Is it more than simply having a document with
that label required?
Having a Constitution itself is not
Constitutionalism.
Even a dictator could create a rulebook calling it
Constitution, which never meant that such a
dictator had any faith in Constitutionalism.

202
Rory Stewart perhaps puts it best:

‗‗ It did not matter what human rights were enshrined

in documents if your local sheikh, party leader, or
policeman could still beat you up on the street
corner.‖
Thus, the mere existence of constitution is not guarantee
for the prevalence of constitutionalism in a nation.

203
Any recognized state must have some acknowledged
means of constituting and specifying the limits
placed upon the three organs of government power:
legislative power, executive power and judicial
power.
Constitutionalism is thus, the order of a state in
which the state and the people strictly governed by
the constitution or customary law.
 To conclude, constitution is distinguished from
constitutionalism—the latter serving as a means of
evaluating the form, substance, and legitimacy of the
former
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How constitutionalism prevail
 Scholars have struggled to define the details of
‗‗constitutionalism.‘‘
 Remarkably, constitutionalism has two major aspects.
 These are:
a) The concepts of rule of law
b) The separation of power
 Moreover, the attributes of rule of law, separation of
powers, popular sovereignty and guarantee of rights are on
most lists.
 3.1. Basic Principles of constitution
a) Popular Sovereignty:
It asserts that the people are the source of any and
all governmental power, and government can exist
only with the consent of the governed
 The most powerful group in the society is the
people.

206
Sovereignty of the people or popular sovereignty
implies that:

a) The ultimate decision making power rests in the

people,

b) The government that exercises power derives its

legitimacy as well as authority from the people.

207
b) Rule law Law
It is the principle that governmental authority is
legitimately exercised only in accordance with
explicit laws
The core idea of this principle is that everybody
including rulers are equal before the law.
This means that the constitution and other laws
should treat everybody equally regardless of citizens‘
economic, social, political, and educational and
other back grounds.

208
Rule of law stand out as the most comprehensive and
vital doctrine or principle of modern constitutions
There are two aspects of the rule of law that are
important:
a) First, the law should govern the people and the
people should obey the law, and
b) Second, the law must be capable of being obeyed
(good laws).

209
c) Political equality
 It is a concept that underline all citizens have equal rights
and liable to equivalent opportunity to take part in the
political decision making process.
 In democracy at least in theory everyone is equally able to
participate in government and compete freely for public
office.
 All citizens are valued equally through their representatives
and not discriminated based on any ground such as religious,
ethnic, identity, gender, social status etc.

210
d) Equality before the law

This principle is highly associated with the rule of

law.
The core idea of this principle is that everybody
including rulers are equal before the law regardless
of citizens‘ economic, social, political, and
educational and other back grounds

211
e) Separation of power
Basically, separation of power implies the vertical
and horizontal division of power between the federal
and regional governments on one hand and among
the legislative executive and judiciary branches on
the other hand.
It was Baron de Montesquieu for the ferst time
advocates the principle of separation of power
among different organs of government

212
f) Secularism: Separation of State and Religion
Secularism is a political and legal doctrine which
states that government and religious institutions are
to be kept separate and independent of one another.
State should not interfere in the affairs of religion
institutions and religion institutions also should not
interfere in the activities of state.

213
g) Majority rule minority right
The principles of majority rule and the protection of
minority rights would seem contradictory.
However, these principles are twin pillars holding up
the very foundation of what we mean by democratic
government.
Majority rule is a means for organizing government
and deciding public issues, it is not another road to
oppression.

214
Minorities (ethnic, religion, or losers in election)
enjoy constitutionally guaranteed basic human rights
as equal as the majority.
At least in theory, Minorities need to trust that the
government will protect their rights and self-
identity.
Once this is accomplished, such groups can
participate in and contribute to their country‘s
democratic institutions

215
h) Independence of judiciary
Judicial independence is the ability of a judge to
decide a matter free from pressures or inducements.
Judges are expected to pass a sound decision up on
any cases based on
a) Evidence and
b) Their conscience / mind

216
Additionally, the institution of the judiciary as a whole
must also be independent by being separate from
government and other concentrations of power.
The principal role of an independent judiciary is to
uphold the rule of law and to ensure the supremacy of
the law.
If the judiciary is to exercise a truly impartial and
independent adjudicative function, it must have special
powers to allow it to ―keep its distance‖ from other
governmental and non-governmental institutions
repercussions and influences.
217
Fundamental Characteristic Features of a Constitution

A constitution has distinctive features that

distinguish it from any other laws.
The following are some of the features of a
constitution.

218
1. Generality
a constitution provides the general principle of
a state and carry on foundation and sets out
general framework of the law and the
government.
Other laws provide the details of the subject
for which they are created.
Constitutional principles are a guideline for
others laws.

219
Any law that contradicts the constitutional provision
will be null and void.
In this case, constitution only states the general
principles.
Thus, this makes constitution different from other
laws that may found in a given country.

220
 2. Permanency
Unlike laws constitution is made for undefined period of
time-it serve for a long lap of ages.
It is purposely made to be stable and permanent.
One of the mechanisms to ensure this permanency is
through constitutional amendment.
Judicial interpretation is also another ways of making a
given constitution adaptability.

221
In short, amendment is necessary to offer stability in
a country.
Thus, constitutional stability is one of the factors for
creating a durable peace in a society.
Unstable constitutional environment mostly
indicates a socio-political instability.

222
3. Supremacy

A constitution is a supreme law of the land.

As a mother of law, it is original law by which the
system of government is created, and to which the
branches of government must look for all their
powers and authority.
It is original because it is directly made by the
people as the direct expression of the will of the
people

223
Typologies of Constitution
Constitutions can be classified into different ways
based on the criteria one used as a bas to make a
category.
1) Based on form of existence constitution can be
classified as Written (codified) and unwritten
(uncodified),
2) Based on mode of amendment constitution can be
classified as flexible or rigid.

224
3) Based on state structure constitution can be
classified as unitary or federal.
4) Based on the degree to which constitution of state
observed in practice, constitution can be classified
as effective and nominal/facade/fictitious
classification.
5) Based on the historical and geo-political context
where and how it is formulated the constitution
can be classified as emulated and indigenous

225
Written vs. unwritten
Written (codified)
A written constitution is essentially a basic
expression of the ideas and organization of a
government that is formally presented in one
document.
A written constitution has the detail of rules, laws and
principles in a single file or document.
It is well arranged and systematized.
Countries like Ethiopia, Kenya, India, France, Germany
and United States of America have written constitutions.
The constitution of India, is the largest constitution in
the world, it has 395 articles
226
Merit
a) It has educational value: Citizens can easily
learn their fundamental rights and duties & the basic
laws governing the patterns of political process of their
nation.
As a result, this document is understandable
In amending the constitution, citizens could have the
chance to seriously consider fundamental provisions
before making the amendments.
b) It is handy for movement.
227
Demerit

a) It is rigid for amendment: It is not easily

adaptable to changing circumstances to be
adaptable with situations; written constitutions
need to be continuously amended or modified.

228
Unwritten (codified)
There are governments without a written
constitutions, which are yet constitutional
governments because they have limited
governments, which can be called constitutional
regimes.
Unwritten constitution does not mean that it is not
stipulated on the paper, rather it refers to its
existence in a scattered manner

229
It is a set of rules, regulations, declarations and laws
passed by either a parliament (the legislative body)
or other competent body at different times.
This kind of constitution is not systematically put in
a document.
Countries like Great Britain, New Zealand, Oman,
Saudi Arabia and Israel have unwritten constitutions.
Such countries ruled by the basic beliefs, traditions, norms,
wisdoms, and conventions of the society.

230
Merit
Dynamics or flexible: It is relatively more
flexible than a written constitution because it can be
easily adapted to changing circumstances.
As a result it may ensure smooth running of the
government in accordance with the various
conventions and customs.
This may contribute to the political stability of the
state.

231
Demerit
 It is not accessible and difficult to know clearly fundamental
rights and duties of citizens and governments. Because of its
inaccessibility, it is nearly impossible to create awareness
through education on the fundamental constitutional rights
and freedoms, duties and obligations of citizens.
 Since there is no legal restraint and because it is not
accessible to the public, it can easily be distorted or even
changed without the consent of the stakeholders.

232
As a result, it would be difficult to quickly
determine which aspect of the constitution is
violated.
It is not simple to determine what an established
convention or custom is. As a result, there may arise
differences in society regarding which convention or
custom is acceptable and which is not, since there
could exist different conventions and customs in a
country.

233
Unitary vs. Federal constitution
 The structure of the state basically determined by
the distribution of power between the state and its
sub units.
 Here, power is a key variable in deciding the type and
nature of state.
 State structure, therefore, signifies the power
relation or balance of power between state/ i.e., the
central state and its constituting parts/ regional states.
 Accordingly, there are two basic state structures: unitary
and federal state.

234
Unitary type of constitution
 In unitary constitutions, authority and power of
the state is concentrated in the hand of the
central government.
 All major policies and principles of administration
originate from the center.
 Here, there is only one source of authority from the
center.

235
Federal type of constitution
 Power is formally divided between the central government and
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 by the
constitution.
 However, one should bear in mind that the form of federalism
in all constitution is not necessarily the same.
 Constitutions may apply different principle and reasons for
federation.
 Similarly, the degree of autonomy exercised at regional or
local levels is not similar in all cases

236
Flexible and Rigid Constitutions

 Constitution needs to be changed or modified in

order to cope up with changing internal and
external circumstances of a country.
 To this end, a constitution may be regarded as rigid
or flexible depending on the complexity of the
requirements stated in the provision for amendment
procedures.

237
Flexible constitution
 The constitution which can be altered or amended without
any special machinery is a flexible constitution.
 The constitution which requires special procedure for its
alteration or amendment is a rigid constitution
 It is s a constitution that adapts easily and immediately to
changing circumstances.
 In this case, the legislature has the unchallenged an
unconstrained power to make and laws on any issues and
affairs.

238
 It is also the one that has simpler requirement
procedures for constitutional amendment, and
therefore, easier to amend.
 This kind of constitution does not require special
session to amend it. No special arrangement is
needed. E.g. UK
 It could be amended by a simple majority of the
parliament. A case in point is England‘s constitution.

239
Rigid constitutions
 Rigid constitutions provide a series of procedural
requirements for amendment.
 A rigid constitution is one in which amendment is very
difficult, requiring special procedures to be employed before
any changes can be made
 In this case, special procedures need to be followed to
amend such constitutions, and therefore, difficult to amend.
 In rigid constitution, amendment procedures may be more
or less a complex or difficult.

240
 For example in Australia, Denmark, Canada,
Ireland, and Spain popular referendums are used
to obtain the public approval for constitutional
amendments or ratify once endorsed by the
legislature.
 Some amendment procedures from the simplest to
the difficult ones are outlined below.

241
Effective and Nominal or Façade and Fictitious
 Based on the degree to which constitution of state
observed in practice, constitution can be classified as
effective and nominal/facade/fictitious
classification

242
Indigenous and Adventitious or Emulated
 Based on the historical and geo-political context
where and how it is formulated the constitution can
be classified as indigenous and adventitious.
 When constitutions established based on the
historical back ground, socio-cultural milieu and go-
political context, it is referred as Indigenous
constitution.
 On the other hand, if a state makes its constitution
by copying from others constitution, we call it as
adventitious constitution.
243
The Constitutional Experience of Ethiopia
It is important to note that despite the long history
of people and state, Ethiopia has little experience
with written constitutions.
Similarly the principle of separation of power and
secularism were alien to Ethiopia‘s legal culture.
One can study the constitutional history of Ethiopia
by classifying in to pre-1931 and post-1931.

244
The pre-1931Constitutional history of Ethiopia:
Traditional Constitutions
Prior to 1931 Ethiopia had no any modern
constitution.
The source of legitimacy and public support for
rulers at that time were traditional principles and
religious (and legendary) documents.
Those legendary documents were served as a
constitution and explained the essence of political
and legal practices.
245
Traditional constitutional experience was found during
the Axumite civilization.

Ethiopia had sophisticated legendary religious unwritten

documents, which included the major principles of the
monarchy, as well as the exclusive right of the imperial
court, the church, and the nobility.

246
The following are the most prominent
constitutionally significant religious legendary
documents.
a) Fetha Negust
b) Kibre Negust
c) Sirate Mengist

247
Religious and Legendary Documents
1) The Fetha Negest (The law of the Kings)
It was a legal document compiled around 1240 by Coptic
Egyptian Christian
 Thus, it was essentially a codex of law providing for secular,
spiritual and legal provisions . .
 It was written in Arabic translated in to Geez around 1450
during the reign of King zereYaqob.
 It began to serve as a supreme law of the land beginning from
the period of Ats SertseDengel in 1563.
248
2) Kebre Negest (the glory of kings)
It appeared in the 14th century.
The Kibre Negest (the glory of kings), strongly dealt
with the legend of a Solomonic Dynasty
The central them of kibre negest was attached to
the story of king Menelik-I who came in to
being as the first king of Ethiopia.

249
 The Kebere Negest argued that all Ethiopian kings
should have a blood tie or decent from the solomonic
dynasty-who is considered as the father of the 1st king
of Ethiopia-Menelik-I.

250
3) Serate Mengeste
SerateMengeste was a document that had emerged in
the 19thc. It provides the administrative and
protocols directives of government activities.

251
Pillars of traditional constitutional principles
of Ethiopia
1) Solomonic dynasty claim to the throne
2) Absolute fidelity to orthodox tewahido church
3) Male succession to the throne
4) Emperial omnipotence

252
The Era of modern constitution

It is important to note that despite the long history

of people and state, Ethiopia has little experience
with written constitutions.
The coming in to power of Emperor Haile Silasse
heralded the ―epoch of written constitution.‖
 This era starts with the promulgation of the first
written constitution in 1931.

253
The 1931 constitution: the Japanese Paradigm
It was conceived as a benevolent gift of the Emperor to
his subject.
 The Constitution can be considered as more of a
formal agreement between the monarchy and the
feudal lords
 The 1931 constitution was considered by many as a step
to wards centralization and modernization of the
system of governance in Ethiopia.

254
Its peculiar feature was that more power or almost
all Powers of the state were bestowed on the
emperor.
This was reflected explicitly in the constitution
itself:
"By virtue of his Imperial blood, as well as by the
anointing which he has received, the person of the
emperor is sacred, his dignity is Inviolable and his
power is indisputable.

255
Rationales for the 1931 constitution
I. Domestic factor
During this time there was a strong struggle
between the emperor and the regional war lords. As
a result of this, the emperor was intending to use the
constitution as a legal weapon to centralize all
power under his hand
2. Foreign factor
To give Ethiopia the image of modernity in the views
of westerners(Italy)

256
The innovations of the 1931constitution
1. Bi-cameral parliament
a. Chamber of senate
b. Chamber of deputies
2. Ministerial system
3. Judiciary system
a. Regular court- regulates civil and criminal cases
b. Administrative tribunal courts- responsible to handle
administrative cases
c. Imperial Zufan chillot
4. Financial system-Fixed annual budgetary system
257
 The Status of Human Rights in 1931
constitution
 It was introducing modern social and political concepts in to
Ethiopia.

 Accordingly, the constitution introduced certain elementary

rights for the ‗subject‘.

258
 Some of the rights recognized by the 1931 constitution includes:

 Art-22:The right to movement: ―Ethiopian subjects have the

right to pass freely from one place to the other‖

 Art-23: No Ethiopian subject may be arrested, sentenced, or

imprisoned except in pursuance of the law

 Art-24: The right to public trial: ―No Ethiopian subject may,

against his will, be deprived of his right to be tried by a legally
established court‖.
259
 Art-25: Freedom from arbitrary search and arrest: “…no
domiciliary searches may be made.”

 Art-26: Right of privacy: “…no one shall have the right to violate
the secrecy of the correspondence of Ethiopian subjects”.

 Art-27: Property right: “… no one shall have the right to deprive an

Ethiopian subject of any movable or landed property which he
owns.

 Art-28: Due process of the law: “All Ethiopian subjects have the
right to present to the Government petitions in legal form

260
 The 1955 Revised Constitution
On the silver Jubilee of his coronation, Haile
Silasse proclaimed the ―Revised Constitution‖
which outdated the 1931 Constitution.
Similar to its predecessor the revised Constitution
solidified the absolutism of the monarchy.
However, the revised constitution was a much
more detailed document containing 8 chapters
and 131 Articles.

261
 Reasons for the 1955 constitution
I. The federation of Eritrea under the sovereign of Ethiopia
in 1952
II. The emperor‟s desire to settle peace with the then socio-
economic and political turmoil
III. The strong pressure came from Ethiopian young
intellectuals

262
Changes and continuities of the constitution
Changes:
a) Secret system of voting
 Art 95: All Ethiopian subjects by birth of 21
years…..shall have the right to elect …the members
of the chamber of deputies-which was previously done
by the emperor and nobilities.
Meanwhile the veto power of the Emperor is still there.

263
 Art 99: the president and two vice president of the
chamber of deputies shall be elected each year from and
by the members of the chamber.

 However article 100 denies the supremacy of the people

by saying that ― the chamber of deputies shall be the sole
judge of the qualifications and elections of its member.

264
b) Recognition of the rights and liberties of the
people

At least there is a textual recognition of the rights and

liberties of the people

Thus, theoretically, the Constitution inserted 29

articles to provide the protection of essential
liberties and rights of the people

265
c) Independence of judiciary
Art 108 states that ― the judicial power shall be vested in
the courts and exercised by the courts in accordance
with the law . . ."
Art 110 farther strengthening the independence of the
judges by stating that ― the judges shall be independent
in conducting trial and giving judgments in accordance
the law.
However, in actual fact the Emperor's Chilot still
functions at the top.
Article 111 declared that ― the judges shall be appointed
by the emperor‖
266
Continuity:
a) Centralization of governmental authority
All legislation, decrees, orders, judgments,
decisions and acts inconsistent with the majesty of
the emperor shall be null and void.
 Thus, the new constitution brought Haile
Selassie‘s power to better and higher heights, and
to consolidate the absolutism of the monarchy.

267
b) Denial of the sovereignty of the people
Art 26: the sovereignty of the empire is vested in the
emperor and the supreme authority over all the
affairs of the empire is exercised by Him as the head
of the state.

268
Limitations
1) There is no any enforcement mechanism of human
rights
2) Gross and systematic Violation of human right
This was done through the abusive usage of the so-
called ‗claw back clauses‘ in the Constitution.
 This was a smart formula to undermine all the rights
and constitutional standards promised to the people.
3) The Emperor also suspends a dozen of human rights of
the people in the name of state of emergency .

269
 The 1987 PDRE Constitution-Durge
February 1974 saw the demise of the oldest
Christian monarchy and replaced by military
Marxism.
 A popular revolution involving peoples from all
sections of the society succeeded in overthrowing of
the ancient imperial regime.

270
After the overthrow of the emperor from his throne
in 1974, Ethiopia was led without constitution by a
serious of decrees and proclamations.
However, 13 years later the military junta came up
with the 1987 constitution.
The document consisted of 17 chapters and 119
articles.

271
The preamble of the constitution states about:
People‘s sovereignty,
the unity of Ethiopia,
the equality of the nationalities with the right to self-
determination,
basic freedoms and human rights and
aims for establishing socialism.

272
The powers of president
 The Secretary General of the Communist party is
(art 86):
a) The head of the state
b) the executive president of the republic,
c) the president of the council of state,
d) the chairman of the National Shengo and
e) the commander in chief of the armed forces.
We thus understand from this power monopoly that
the system was dictatorial which did not allow the
participation of the people in the various state
organs.
273
:
His major roles include
a) Ensuring the implementation of domestic and
foreign policy,
b) Appoint members of the Defense Council,
c) Conclude international treaties, and
d) Perform other roles assigned to him by the
National Shengo.

274
 Human Rights Freedoms and Duties (art 31-58)

 Although the Constitution does not specifically refer

to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights or
other international human rights instruments, it
does guarantee a number of basic human rights.
 Its preamble states that "basic freedoms and rights are
guaranteed and duties respected".

275
 Chapter Seven of the constitution deals with
"Fundamental Freedoms, Rights and Duties of
Citizens", among others some of the rights include:

 Article 35( l): "Ethiopians are equal before the law,

irrespective of nationality, sex, religion, occupation,
social or other status";

 Articles 44 and 45: both articles argued against

arbitrary or illegal detention

276
The 1995 FDRE Constitution
The process of transition from a unitary to a federal
system in Ethiopia has proceeded in two sequential
and interrelated phases:
1) the first phase of the devolution took place during
the Transitional period (1991-1995); and
2) The second phase commenced after the enactment
of the 1995 federal constitution.

277
The legal basis of the process of devolution of power
during the 1991-95 transition period was laid down
by a number of crucial political events and legal
measures that included:
a) the convention of a national conference,
b) the adoption of a transitional period charter, and
c) the formation of a transitional government.

278
The 1991 transitional charter of Ethiopia
Introduction
The charter was formulated and proclaimed at the
session of Peace and Democratic Conference,
which was held in Addis Ababa from July 1-5, 1991.
In this conference different political group, legal
experts, representatives of various interest groups,
and international non-voting bodies have
participated.
279
The ethnic based liberation movements came together
immediately at a conference and drafted and approved a
provisional constitution known as the Transitional Charter.
The Charter was a very brief document with only 20 articles
under 5 chapters.
 The aspirations stipulated in its preamble include:
a) the guarantee of freedom, equal rights, and self-determination of
all peoples;
b) Ensuring peace and stability by bringing an end to all hostilities,
and
c) Redressing regional prejudices and safeguarding rights of citizens
through democratic election, constitution of Ethiopia.

280
Interestingly the Charter puts a high premium on
human rights.
This is manifested in its direct reference to the
UDHR in its Art(1) which states that ―based on UDHR
individual human rights are respected fully and without
any limitation what so ever”.
This document can be considered as the
foundation for the 1995 or currently operational

281
The 1995 F.D.R.E. Constitution
After a prolonged transition, a Federal Democratic
Constitution was adopted in 1994 to come into force in
1995.
This constitution was christened as the constitution of
the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia (FDRE).
The FDRE Constitution is a compact document with an
admirable degree of clarity.
It has 106 articles packed in 11 chapters.

282
Article 104: Initiation of Amendments
Any proposal for constitutional amendment, if
supported by 2/3 (two-thirds) majority vote in the
House of Peoples‘ Representatives, or by a 2/3
(two-thirds) majority vote in the House of the
Federation or when 1/3 (one-third) of the State
Councils of the member States of the Federation,
by a majority vote in each Council have supported it,
shall be submitted for discussion and decision to the
general public and to those whom the amendment of
the Constitution concerns.
283
Article 105: Amendment of the Constitution
1. All rights and freedoms specified in Chapter Three of this
Constitution, this very Article, and Article 104 can be
amended only in the following manner:
(a) When all State Councils, by a majority vote, approve the
proposed amendment;
(b) When the House of Peoples’ Representatives, by 2/3 (a
two- thirds) majority vote, approves the proposed
amendment; and
(c) When the House of the Federation, by 2/3 (a two-thirds)
majority vote, approves the proposed amendment

284
 All provisions of this Constitution other than those
specified in sub Article 1 of this Article can be
amended only in the following manner:
(a) When the House of Peoples’ Representatives and
the House of the Federation, in a joint session,
approve a proposed amendment by2/3 (a two-thirds)
majority vote; and
(b) When 2/3 (two-thirds) of the Councils of the
member States of the Federation approve the
proposed amendment by majority votes.

285
Chapter 6:Human Rights
 Human rights are rights that are only enjoyed by
human beings.
 This human right also refers to universal rights of
human beings regardless of jurisdiction or other
factors, such as ethnicity, nationality, religion, or
sex.

286
Genesis of Human Rights
 All human beings have the same human rights and
hold them equally and inalienably.’ (Donnelly, 1998,
p.18)
 Human rights may generally be defined as those
rights which are inherent to our nature and without
which we cannot live as human beings.
 They are essential because they help us to use and
develop our faculties, talents and intelligence.

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 Human right is one among the most
powerful concepts of the twentieth
century.
Fifty years ago there was none to speak
of human rights at municipal or
international sphere.
However, there were some philosophies and
theories but the use of the expression
‘human rights’ was absent.

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 For the first time the expression ‘human
right’ was used in the Charter of the United
Nations, which adopted in 1945, after the
Second World War.
With the establishment of UNO that the
human rights got a momentum in the
international sphere.

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 Although human rights were defined first by
the Scottish philosopher John Locke(1632-
1704) as absolute, moral claims or
entitlements to life, liberty and property, the
best known expression of is in the Virginia
Declaration of right in 1776 which proclaims
that ― all men are by nature equally free and
independent and have certain inherent rights,
of which, when they enter a state of society.‖

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Why Are Human Rights Important?
 Human rights reflect the minimum standards necessary for
people to live with dignity and equality.
 Human rights give people the freedom to choose how they
live, how they express themselves, and what kind of
government they want to support, among many other
things.
 Human rights also guarantee people the means necessary to
satisfy their basic needs, such as food, housing, and
education, so they can take full advantage of all
opportunities.

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  Finally, by guaranteeing life, liberty, and security, human
rights protect people against abuse by individuals and groups
who are more powerful.
 According to the United Nations, human rights: Ensure that
a human being will be able to fully develop and use human
qualities such as intelligence, talent, and conscience and
satisfy his or her spiritual and other needs.
 Human rights are not just theoretical; they are recognized
standards to which governments are to be held accountable.

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 In 1948, UN General Assembly adopted the
Universal Declaration of Human Rights which
guaranteed certain universal rights such as the right
to life, liberty and equality to all human beings
wherever they resided.
As DD Raphael pointed out the 1948 UDHR is a
revival of the 18th century concept of the Rights of
Man.

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 Yet, neither the Charter nor the Universal
Declaration was a binding instrument and had no
machinery for its enforcement.
 This deficiency was filled by adopting two
covenants for the implementation of human
rights-
 a) The Covenant on Civil and Political rights 1966
and
 b) The Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural
Rights 1966.

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 The fundamental difference between these
two covenants is, while the former
formulated legally enforceable rights of in
individual, the latter was addressed to the
states to implement them by legislation.

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2.1.1. Nature of Human Rights
Talking about human rights isn’t always easy.
Understanding how they work in practice can be
harder still.
Understanding of the meaning of human rights
assumes very much significance in resolving some
issues such as:
a) which rights are absolute,
b) which are universal,
c) which should be given priority,
d) which can be overruled by other interests,
e) which can demand for implementation and so on.

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Salient Features of HRs
 Human rights possess the following salient features that
distinguish them from other variants of right like
democratic/ legal and moral rights.
1) Natural Rights
2) Universal Rights
3) Equality Rights
4) Eternal Rights
5) Inalienable Rights
6) Inviolability Rights

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 1) Natural Rights: inborn/innate rights endowed to
all mankind by nature.
Hence, they are not given to individuals by the will
of government and similarly they are not subjected
to the permission of anybody to be enjoyed or
denied.
2) Universal Rights:They are not bound by space and
time differences.
All people across all places and times enjoy them
without any form of discrimination.
3
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 3) Eternal Rights: as far as human society exists on
earth human rights continue to exist.
Human rights are irrevocable.
4)Equality Rights: They are applied equally for all
irrespective of sex, ethnic group, color,
language, nation, age, citizenship, religion,
political outlook, social position and etc.
5) Inalienable: human rights cannot be separated from
human nature.
We cannot alienate human rights from human
nature because they are fundamental.
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 6)Inviolability: Human rights by their very nature are expected not
to be violated or even restricted by any one.
 In some countries where democracy is well consolidated this
inviolability logic extends to even at times of
crisis/emergency.

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Classification of HRs
 The classification of human rights facilitates our
understanding of the contents of human rights.
 However, there is no complete agreement on the
classification of human rights.
 Thus, such classification of rights into diverse
typology has generated a degree of controversy
among human rights law scholars.

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 1. Generation of Human Rights
Inline the1789 French Revolution principles of liberty,
equality, and fraternity, Karel Vasak developed the
generational division of rights as:
 ―First Generation‖ rights (civil and political rights) ,
 ―Second Generation‖ rights (economic, social, and
cultural), and
 ―Third Generation‖ rights (the right to development,
peace, environment, and other rights.
 This is a classification of rights based on their
evolution/generation in human history.

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  However, some scholars assert that the term ‗generation‘ is
somewhat inappropriate.
 They argued that such category of rights may led to a
succession of phenomena, whereby a new generation
takes the place of the previous one.
 That is, however, not the case with the three ‗generations‘
of human rights.
 To that effect, the word ‗generations‘ should have
been replaced by ‗categories‘.
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First-Generation Rights
 They are primarily the result of the 17th and 18th century reformist
theories associated with the English, American and French
Revolution.
 The realization of these rights require state abstention rather than
state intervention.
 However, civil and political rights cannot be realized by mere
noninterference.
 For example, the right to security and the right to fair and
public trial necessarily require positive state action.
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  The rights contained under Article 2-22 of the UDHR and most of
the rights contained in the ICCPR.
 To mention few:
 The right to life
 The right to liberty and security
 The right to property
 The right to equality
 Freedom from racial and other forms of discrimination
 Freedom from slavery or involuntary servitude

 Freedom from torture and cruel, inhuman or degrading

treatment
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Second Generation Rights

 They include economic, social and cultural rights.

 The origin of this generation of rights is associated
with the socialist movements of the 19th century
and the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution.
 The realization of these rights requires state
intervention.

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  These rights are to be implemented progressively depending on the
availability of resources. However, the right to equality and the
principles of non-discrimination has to be implemented
immediately.
 The rights contained under Article 22-27 of the UDHR and most of
the rights contained in the ICESCR may be classified as second-
generation rights.

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  These include:
 The right to work and the ‗right in work‘
 The right to form/join trade unions The right to education
 The right to social security
 The right to health
 The right to adequate standard of living
 The right to participate in cultural life
 Moreover, cultural rights include the right:
 to participate in the cultural life of one‘s community,
 to share in scientific advancement and
 to the protection of the moral and material interests resulting from one‘s
scientific, or artistic production.

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Third-Generation rights
 It is associated with the emergence of Third World nationalism and its demand
for global redistribution of power, wealth and other values.
 It include:
 The right to self-determination (political, economic, social and cultural
self-determination)
 The right to development
 The right to participate in and benefit from the ‗common heritage of mankind‘
 The right to peace
 The right to healthy and balanced environment
 The right to humanitarian disaster relief

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 2. Based on the type of the right holder human rights
can be classified into; individual rights and
group rights.

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 3) Human rights can also be classified based on the
type of state obligation as negative rights and
positive rights.
The holder of a negative right is entitled to non-
interference, while the holder of a positive right is
entitled to provision of some good or service.
A right against assault is a classic example of a
negative right, while a right to welfare assistance is a
prototypical positive right (Narveson 2001).

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  Negative rights are easier to satisfy than positive rights.
 Negative rights can be respected simply by each person
refraining from interfering with each other, while it may be
difficult or even impossible to fulfill everyone's positive
rights if the sum of people's claims outstrips the resources
available.
 However, when it comes to the enforcement of rights, this
difference disappears.
 Funding a legal system that enforces citizens' negative rights
against physical attack may require more resources than
funding a welfare system that realizes citizens' positive rights
to assistance. Ant
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 Human Rights and State Obligations
 States have the primary responsibility for human rights
observance within their respective borders.
 Under Article 2 of the ICCPR, every state party has an
obligation to respect and promote the rights of all
individuals within its territory jurisdiction.
 Article 2 of the ICESCR also declared that each state party
should undertakes an action … to the maximum of its
available resources, ….progressively for the full realization
of the rights recognized‖ in that covenant.

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 1. Respect: The obligation to respect means that
States must refrain from interfering with or
curtailing the enjoyment of human rights.
In other words, a state must not violate a particular
right.
This obligation might entail the duty to act at the
legislative, executive, and judicial level in a state.

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 2. Protection: The obligation to protect requires
States to protect individuals and groups against human
rights violation and abuses by non-state actors.
This duty involves the power to proscribe abusive or
violative acts or omissions.

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 3. Promotion: The duty to promotion entails the responsibility to propagate
the notion of rights (and the sanctity thereof) to the wider society.
 It includes the responsibility to:
 translate human rights instruments into local vernaculars;
 publication and dissemination of such instruments; and running awareness
trainings;
 expanding (formal and informal) human rights education; conducting
researches on specific areas of concern;
 advocating advancement of the human rights cause in the public sphere;
 networking with communities, civil society organizations, academics,
activists, and local, national, regional, and international actors;

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 4. Fulfill: The obligation to fulfill means that States must take
positive action to facilitate the enjoyment of basic human
rights.

 A state has a responsibility to take all appropriate measures,

like allotting budgetary resources, to the realization of that
right.

 To fulfill, the duty-bearer undertakes the task of financing

the provision of the rights.

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Thanks for your attention!!

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