The Legislative Process in Ethiopia: Challenges and Prospects
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Date
2013-12
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Addis Ababa University
Abstract
The main purpose of this study is to critically evaluate the power and jurisdiction of the
Ethiopian national legislature with a greater emphasis on public policy making process &
practices of HPRs in Ethiopia. The level of data discussion, analysis and interpretation is made
using descriptive analytical research methods through collecting relevant documents from the
Ministry of Justice, the National Legislatures (the standing committee members of different
affairs in the HPRs of FDRE) including some academia of Addis Ababa University by using open
ended questionnaires and structured interviews which these, in turn, are indispensable to
traverse the responses from the primary sources.
Based on the analysis and interpretation of data, findings of this research show that: the FDRE
HPRs, experts from the MoJ and AAU senior educators during the draft policy legislation
(lawmaking) process, the absolute power is being vested in the hands of the executive. The
fragmented opposition parties & the independent MPs remain minority while the ruling party
enjoyed absolute majority vote. All actors of public policy making in Ethiopia shared the need
for all the public laws despite differences in key provisions of the constitutional balance among
the three: the legislature, executive & the judiciary with the key areas of concern focusing on the
major stakeholders or leading players that exercise the strongest leverage in the public policy
making jurisdictions where legislative process by the HPRs of FDRE is materialized yet the key
actors are believed to have involved from its formulation until ratification in the parliament.
In essence, the government should continue to raise concerns about the draft policy legislation
and design a system for reviewing the enforcement and impact of public policies with the aim to
provide evidence on how their application is affecting all national priority areas of concern. The
executive should make continuous reappraisal of the most contentious provisions and provide
remedies for such legal & constitutional complexities. Therefore, as far as the power of the
legislature and the executive is concerned, during the law making process in Ethiopia, the
process has unbalanced power between the legislature and the executive. The judiciary hence,
the Ministry of Justice, plays the major role (the highest power) during a given parliamentary
law making process in the HPRs on reconciling some contradictory public issues/controversial
provisions upon which balance of power between the legislative and executive could be
maintained to the level of constitutional harmony
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Keywords
Challenges and Prospects