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Browsing Law by Author "Abate, Mizanie(Assistance Professor)"

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    The Protection of the Rights of Children of Divorced Parents in Ethiopia
    (Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, 2017-05) Girma, Firehiwot; Abate, Mizanie(Assistance Professor)
    The paper analyzes the protection of the rights of children of divorced parents in Ethiopia from the perspective of the general legal regime of children’s rights such as the Convention on the Rights of Child, the African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of Children, the Constitution of Federal Democratic Ethiopia, the Revised Family Code and the Criminal Code of the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia. The analysis is substantiated primarily by selected divorce cases decided by the Federal First Instance Court Bole Division relating to the rights of children of divorced parents and by information acquired through interview of one judge at the FFIC Bole Division and two legal experts each at the Children’s Legal Protection Center and the Ethiopian Women Lawyers Association. The analysis is also supplemented by Cassation Decisions of the Federal Supreme Court; Reports; and Concluding Observations as well as the General Comments of the Committee on the Convention on the Rights of Child. The children of divorced parents have various rights including the rights to maintenance, custody and visitation. These rights are special rights unique to such children apart from other civil and political, and socio-economic as well as cultural rights to which they are entitled just like any children. The researcher argues that the modalities for determining custody, maintenance and visitation rights as stipulated under Article 113(2) of the Revised Family Code are too general and not exhaustive. For there is no rules of procedure or guideline providing objective standard, it seems consideration of the factors listed under the provision is left to the judges’ subjective appreciation of the circumstances of the case. As a result, decisions of the court relating to the rights and interests of children of divorced parents lacks predictability and uniformity. Consequently, the researcher recommends the enactment of a binding rules of procedure or a guideline for the implementation of custody, maintenance and visitation rights of children of divorced parents (separately for each or in one) so as to fully implement Article 113(2) of the RFC and thereby ensure uniformity and predictability of the practice at courts. To achieve this end, the Draft Directive for the Determination of Maintenance prepared by the FFIC might be used as a model.