A Theory of African Constitutionalism

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Berihun Adugna Gebeye
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Case Studies ◽  
Women's Rights ◽  
African State ◽  
Executive Power ◽  
Women’S Rights ◽  
Constitutional Rights ◽  
Detailed Case ◽  
African Experience

This book asks and seeks to answer why we need a theory for African constitutionalism and how this could offer us better theoretical and practical tools with which to understand, improve, and assess African constitutionalism on its own terms. By locating constitutional studies in Africa within the experiences, interactions, and contestations of power and governance beginning in precolonial times, the book presents the development and transformation of African constitutional systems across time and place, along with the attendant constitutional designs and practices ranging from the nature and operation of the African state to its vertical and horizontal government structures, to its constitutional rights regime. It offers both a theoretically and comparatively rich, historically and contextually informed, and temporally and spatially extensive account of the nature, travails, and incremental successes of African constitutionalism with detailed case studies from Nigeria, Ethiopia, and South Africa on important themes like federalism, executive power, and women’s rights. The book aims to bring a new global conversation with a richly African experience as a comparative resource in reimagining the purpose, substance, and scope of constitutions and constitutionalism.

Women’s Constitutional Rights

2021 ◽  
pp. 176-212
Author(s):  
Berihun Adugna Gebeye
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Human Rights ◽  
Women's Rights ◽  
Cultural Relativism ◽  
Women’S Rights ◽  
Constitutional Rights ◽  
Substantive Content ◽  
General Investigation ◽  
Standard Of Comparison ◽  
Design And Practice

This chapter explains how legal syncretism influences and manifests itself in the design and practice of constitutional rights—with a particular focus on women’s rights—in the constitutional systems of Nigeria, South Africa, and Ethiopia. The chapter demonstrates how the interaction between the liberal and indigenous conceptions of rights in a constitutional space produces unique regimes of women’s rights in these countries. The chapter first presents a brief theory of women’s rights as a standard of comparison and evaluation; this is done through a more general investigation of women’s rights in international law. This is then followed by a more focused discussion of women’s constitutional rights in Nigeria, South Africa, and Ethiopia. Such discussion explores the substantive content and the way in which women’s rights are constitutionalized, as well as their practical and judicial applications. The syncretic nature of women’s rights in these countries sheds some light on the importance of looking beyond the universalism versus cultural relativism debate when trying to enforce human rights in Africa.

Administrative Justice in Kenya: Learning from South Africa's Mistakes

2018 ◽  
Vol 62 (1) ◽  
pp. 105-128
Author(s):  
Cora Hoexter
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
South African ◽  
Constitutional Rights ◽  
The South ◽  
Administrative Action ◽  
African Experience ◽  
Administrative Justice

AbstractThe wording of article 47 of Kenya's Constitution of 2010 is almost identical to that of the section 33 rights to just administrative action in South Africa's 1996 Constitution. Like section 33, article 47 mandates the enactment of legislation to give effect to these constitutional rights, and Kenya's Fair Administrative Action Act 4 of 2015 was strongly influenced by the equivalent South African legislation, the Promotion of Administrative Justice Act 3 of 2000 (PAJA). South Africa can thus be regarded as a sort of laboratory for Kenyan administrative justice. The aim of this article is to highlight some of the South African experience in relation to section 33 and the PAJA in the hope that Kenya will learn from some of South Africa's mistakes. It argues that the Kenyan courts should avoid following the example of their South African counterparts in allowing their mandated legislation to become almost redundant.

Men’s Perceptions of Women’s Rights and Changing Gender Relations in South Africa

2012 ◽  
Vol 26 (1) ◽  
pp. 97-120 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shari L. Dworkin ◽  
Christopher Colvin ◽  
Abbey Hatcher ◽  
Dean Peacock
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Women's Rights ◽  
Gender Relations ◽  
Women’S Rights

scholarly journals Fleksibilitas Hak Perempuan dalam Cerai Gugat di Pengadilan Agama Parepare

2019 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-16
Author(s):  
Fikri Fikri
Keyword(s):  
Qualitative Research ◽  
Law Enforcement ◽  
Case Studies ◽  
Women's Rights ◽  
Women’S Rights ◽  
Psychological Approach ◽  
Patriarchal Culture ◽  
Religious Courts ◽  
Husband And Wife

This study aimed to know about the flexibility of women's rights in divorce at Parepare Religious Court and how the judge resolved divorce case. This study was conducted with qualitative research with a focus on case studies, with a juridical, socio-anthropological, philosophical and psychological approach. The results of this study shows; 1) Judge's decision in Case No.171/Pdt.G/2019/PA.Pare is flexible in deciding divorce case. The case of divorce is a reflection of equality and justice in women's rights to law enforcement in the Religious Courts. Divorced as well as eliminating patriarchal culture by placing women as second class; 2) The judge at Religious Court in Parepare can approve in a divorce case for several reasons as follows; disputes and quarrels occur between husband and wife, the husband persecutes and hurts his wife's body, the husband betrays his wife to another woman.

The Executive

2021 ◽  
pp. 151-175
Author(s):  
Berihun Adugna Gebeye
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Conceptual Framework ◽  
Case Studies ◽  
Executive Branch ◽  
Executive Power ◽  
Constitutional Theory ◽  
Discursive Practices ◽  
Constitutional Design ◽  
Comparative Case Studies ◽  
Design And Practice

This chapter focuses on the executive branch in order to explain how legal syncretism influences African constitutional design and practice, using Nigeria, Ethiopia, and South Africa as comparative case studies. The chapter first develops a conceptual framework for the design of the executive and the practice of executive power drawing from liberal constitutional theory. The chapter then explores and examines the design of the executive and the practice of executive power in Nigeria, Ethiopia, and South Africa. The aim is to demonstrate how legal syncretism shapes the executive branches in these countries and how different configurations of legal syncretism have produced imperial executives in Nigeria and Ethiopia, but not in South Africa. By disentangling the discursive practices that bring about and sustain the imperial executives, and by showing the pathologies of constitutional design and practice related to the executive, the chapter defends the idea of a limited executive if constitutionalism is to prosper in Africa.

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