Competence and Legitimacy of Ethiopian Courts in the Adjudication of Socio-Economic Rights: An Appraisal of the Challenges and Prospects
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Date
2010-12
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Addis Ababa University
Abstract
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.
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Keywords
Socio-economic Rights. Competence, Legitimacy, Recognition, Justiciabiliy, Minimum Core.