Browsing by Author "Bogale, Sisay"

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    Competence and Legitimacy of Ethiopian Courts in the Adjudication of Socio-Economic Rights: An Appraisal of the Challenges and Prospects
    (Addis Ababa University, 2010-12) Bogale, Sisay; ABATE, MIZANIE (PhD)
    Socio-economic rights are those human rights that aim at securing basic quality of life in terms of food, water, shelter, education, health care and housing for all members of a particular society. For proper enforcement of these rights, two things shall go hand in hand: legal recognition and judicial scrutiny in case of violations. To this end, the existence of courts capable of providing remedies is essential. Accordingly, this dissertation tries to assess the recognition of the rights in the Ethiopian legal system and the competence and legitimacy of Ethiopian Courts in the adjudication of these rights through a qualitative research method (interview of 13 judges along with the assessment of other international and domestic laws and literatures). Thus, the existing theoretical and practical challenges related to competence and legitimacy and other major impediments are identified. The major setback emanates from the FDRE Constitution itself which grants apparent power of interpretation of socio-economic rights to HOF. Other problems include: ouster clauses against powers of courts, poor perception of the people towards the judiciary, ambiguity on status of international instruments in the FDRE Constitution, non-publication of international instruments, absence of domestic legislation on the contents of socio-economic rights and absence of public interest litigation. The author of this dissertation argues that these challenges cannot absolutely hinder courts from judicial scrutiny of socio-economic rights in Ethiopia and can be overcome by the joint action of courts and the government. Accordingly, the dissertation concludes that Ethiopian courts are competent and legitimate to adjudicate socio-economic rights.