Criminal Law and Capital Punishment in Federal Ethiopia; The Case of Oromia and SNNPRS
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Date
2015-05
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Addis Ababa University
Abstract
The thesis looks in to criminal laws and death penalty powers of the regional states in Ethiopia; the case
of Oromia and SNNPR State. Principally, the FDRE Constitution has established ethnic based selfgoverning federal arrangement and incorporates division of Legislative, executive and judicial powers
with dual Government structure. This federal arrangement has one major goal, providing the various
ethno-national groups - 'Nations, Nationalities and Peoples' - of Ethiopia with the power to govern
themselves through self rule and shared rule. Although the constitutional principles and the federal
arrangement exemplify such features, the criminal laws power is centralize. Based on this, the main issue
addressed in this paper is as whether the regional states are exercising criminal laws legislative,
adjudicative and implementation power in general and death penalty in particular. To test this, the
writer used descriptive and analytical qualitative technique. Primary data were collected from key
informants through interview. Countries constitutions, legal documents and other relevant documents
were also used as secondary data. The writer after making serious analysis has reached the Following
findings: In the federal arrangement substantive criminal law legislative power is vested with both the
federal and Regional States. The regional states power is limited only to matters not specifically covered
by federal criminal code or laws. Criminal procedural law legislative power is reserved as residual
power for the regional states, however the Federal legislative organ exhaustively define all criminal
matters leaving almost no rooms for the regional states and take away the Regional states power and
enacted centralized criminal code and laws. Following centralized federal criminal code, normatively
speaking criminal laws adjudication and implementation power is also centralized. It is only the federal
court and federal criminal law enforcing agencies establishment proclamations that sufficiently define
their criminal jurisdiction while the regional states courts and criminal enforcing agencies have no
sufficient laws which determine their criminal jurisdiction. However practically criminal laws
adjudication and implementation is decentralized, as a result Oromia and SNNPR state courts assume
residual criminal jurisdiction. With respect to death penalty implementation the issue is treated
differently, although regional states are adjudicating capital crimes, the implementation of death penalty
requires the blessing of the central government. It cannot be executed, pardoned or commuted unless the
head of the state sign it. Based on the findings, the writer come up with the conclusion that for the real
implementation of federalism in criminal justice system, the Federal criminal code should be amended
and regional states should exercise their power to determine their own matters by themselves and as such
determine state nature crimes and corresponding penalties to adjudicate and implement by themselves.
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Keywords
SNNPR,Oromia and SNNPR State,