The Constitutional Right to Self-determination as a Response to the ‘Question of Nationalities’ in Ethiopia

2018 ◽  
Vol 25 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-50
Author(s):  
Getachew Assefa

Characterising the crises of Ethiopian state-society relations in the 20th century as resulting from ethnic/national oppression, proponents of the ‘question of nationalities’ who have been in control of state power since 1991, have devised an ethnic-based federal system that bestows the right to secession on every ethno-national group in the country. This article argues that the diagnosis of the problems of 20th century Ethiopia as only resulting from national oppression is counterfactual. The problems that drove the Ethiopian state close to the brink of collapse during the final decade of the last century resulted from a host of factors, to which the controversial fact of ‘ethnic oppression’ contributed only a small and instrumental part. The article seeks to show that bad governance and the unbearable economic and social misery of the Ethiopian people as a whole were the most important reasons for the state crises that were experienced.

2019 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 78
Author(s):  
Dardan Vuniqi

State is society’s need for the existence of an organized power, equipped with the right equipments of coercion and able to run the society, by imposing the choices that seem reasonable to them, through legal norms. State is an organization of state power; it is an organized power which imposes its will to all the society and has a whole mechanism to execute this will. The state realizes its functions through power, which is a mechanism to accomplish its relevant functions. The power’s concept is a social concept, which can be understood only as a relation between two subjects, between two wills. Power is the ability to impose an order, a rule and other’s behavior in case that he doesn’t apply voluntary the relevant norm, respectively the right. Using state power is related to creation and application, respectively the implementation of law. To understand state power better, we have to start from its overall character. So, we notice that in practice we encounter different kinds of powers: the family’s one, the school’s one, the health’s one, the religion’s, culture’s etc. The notion of powers can be understood as a report between two subjects, two wills. Power is an order for other’s behavior. Every power is some kind of liability, dependence from others. In the legal aspect, supremacy of state presents the constitutive – legislative form upon the powers that follow after it. Supremacy, respectively the prevalence, is stronger upon other powers in its territory. For example we take the highest state body, the parliament as a legislative body, where all other powers that come after it, like the executive and court’s one, are dependable on state’s central power. We can’t avoid the carriage of state’s sovereignty in the competences of different international organizations. Republic, based on ratified agreements for certain cases can overstep state’s power on international organizations. The people legitimate power and its bodies, by giving their votes for a mandate of governance (people’s verdict). It is true that we understand people’s sovereignty only as a quality of people, where with the word people we understand the entirety of citizens that live in a state. The sovereignty’s case actualizes especially to prove people’s right for self-determination until the disconnection that can be seen as national – state sovereignty. National sovereignty is the right of a nation for self-determination. Sovereignty’s cease happens when the monopoly of physical strength ceases as well, and this monopoly is won by another organization. A state can be ceased with the voluntary union of two or more states in a mutual state, or a state can be ceased from a federative state, where federal units win their independence. In this context we have to do with former USSR’s units, separated in some independent states, like Czechoslovakia unit that was separated in two independent states: in Czech Republic and Slovakia. Former Yugoslavia was separated from eight federal units, today from these federal units seven of them have won their independence and their international recognition, and the Republic of Kosovo is one amongst them. Every state power’s activity has legal effect inside the borders of a certain territory and inside this territory the people come under the relevant state’s power. Territorial expansion of state power is three dimensional. The first dimension includes the land inside a state’s borders, the second dimension includes the airspace upon the land and the third dimension includes water space. The airspace upon inside territorial waters is also a power upon people and the power is not universal, meaning that it doesn’t include all mankind. State territory is the space that’s under state’s sovereignty. It is an essential element for its existence. According to the author Juaraj Andrassy, state territory lies in land and water space inside the borders, land and water under this space and the air upon it. Coastal waters and air are considered as parts that belong to land area, because in every case they share her destiny. Exceptionally, according to the international right or international treaties, it is possible that in one certain state’s territory another state’s power can be used. In this case we have to do with the extraterritoriality of state power. The state extraterritoriality’s institute is connected to the concept of another state’s territory, where we have to do with diplomatic representatives of a foreign country, where in the buildings of these diplomatic representatives, the power of the current state is not used. These buildings, according to the international right, the diplomatic right, have territorial immunity and the relevant host state bodies don’t have any power. Regarding to inviolability, respectively within this case, we have two groups to mention: the real immunity and the personal immunity, which are connected with the extraterritoriality’s institute. Key words: Independence, Sovereignty, Preponderance, Prevalence, Territorial Expansion.


2000 ◽  
Vol 13 (2) ◽  
pp. 185-205 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chaim Gans

The right of national groups to self-government should be universally conceived of in sub-statist forms. Instead of interpreting the right to national self-determination in terms of independent statehood, it should in all cases be conceived of as a package of privileges to which each national group is entitled in its main geographic location, normally within the state that coincides with its homeland. According to this sub-statist conception, self-determination is not a right of majority nations within states vis-a-vis national minorities, but rather a right of homeland groups vis-a-vis non-homeland groups. It is a right to which each national group in the world is entitled, and which must be realized in at least one place.


Obiter ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 37 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Melody Musoni

The focus of this note is to analyze whether the Cybercrimes and Cybersecurity Bill provides a harmonization between search and seizure and the constitutional right to privacy. This will be achieved by discussing the State powers of search and seizure in cyberspace vis-à-vis the right to privacy as envisaged in the Protection of Personal Information Act. Further, this note investigates whether the Cybercrimes and Cybersecurity Bill achieves the purpose of combatting cybercrimes without the infringement of the right to privacy. Subsequently, the article provides plausible recommendations on how the State should lawfully conduct searches and seizures of articles related to cybercrimes.


Author(s):  
Adom Getachew

This epilogue charts the fall of self-determination and illustrates that the collapse of anticolonial worldmaking continues to structure our contemporary moment. Picking up in the immediate aftermath of the NIEO, it locates self-determination's fall in two developments—the increasingly critical orientation of Western intellectuals and politicians toward the right to self-determination as well as the diminution of international institutions like the United Nations where anticolonial nationalists had staged their worldmaking. Together the normative erosion of self-determination and marginalization of the United Nations set the stage for the resurgence of international hierarchy and a newly unrestrained American imperialism. At the same time, the critical resources of anticolonial nationalism appeared to be exhausted as the institutional form of the postcolonial state fell short of its democratic and egalitarian aspirations, and anticolonial worldmaking retreated into a minimalist defense of the state.


2021 ◽  
pp. 211-229
Author(s):  
Aleksandra Pavićević ◽  

The subject of the paper is the relationship between the duties of physicians and other medical professionals towards the dying patient (as a provider of medical services) and the patient's right to personal choice and preservation of his own right to self-determination in relation to body and life, which is a special subjective civil right. The author discusses the legal-medical (but also ethical) issue of the patient's ability to freely decide not to agree to a medical measure of artificial prolongation of life or suspension of already started measures. The issue is examining the limits of the so-called permissibility of “passive euthanasia”, which is indirectly recognized in domestic law by the Law on Patients' Rights and the legal basis for its application in one particular modality, the so-called "Patient letter" (living will) which is an established legal instrument in some foreign legislation and practice. Analyzing the experience of some foreign countries, the author supports the introduction of such an institute - as a kind of anticipated directives in domestic law, referring to the patient's constitutional right to self-determination, which embodies the supreme good, even more valuable than (unwanted) life. Such a solution is in line with the principle of human will autonomy, freedom to dispose of life as a personal good, and potentially a reflection of the so-called "the right to die", which is the reverse of the right to life


Author(s):  
Heinrich de Wall

AbstractIn search of the system of the state-church relation in the German Constitution – the academic discussion about state church law in the period of Weimar. The academic discussion during the period of Weimar about the state-church relation as it was adjusted by the German Constitution lasted only thirteen years. Among many other themes it focussed on the right of self-determination of religious communities and its limits, on the churches’ status as public corporations, and on the extent of state supervision over the churches. Summarizing these topics, the question how the “system of church politics of the constitution” could be defined was widely discussed. As the state-church regulation was the result of a compromise between fundamentally opposing positions, it was hardly possible to find a summarizing term for this concept. The formulations which were proposed clearly reflect this difficulty. Irrespective of this, the Weimar discussion developed principles of the state church law which are still valid.


2022 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 35-45
Author(s):  
I Nyoman Budiana

Article 28E paragraph (1) of the 1945 Constitution states "Every person shall be free to choose and to practice the religion of his/her choice, to choose one’s education, to choose one’s employment, to choose one’s citizenship, and to choose one’s place of residence within the state territory, to leave it and to subsequently return to it.” In paragraph (2), everyone has the right to the freedom to believe in his/her beliefs, to express his/her views and thoughts, according to his/her conscience. The constitutional guarantees for believers can also be seen in Article 29 of the 1945 Constitution stating that the state shall be based upon the One and Only God and the State guarantees all persons the freedom of worship, each according to his/her own religion or belief. The Constitutional Court affirms that the right to adhere to a religion or belief in God Almighty is a citizen's constitutional right, not a gift from the state. Therefore, the state is obliged to protect and guarantee the fulfillment of the rights of it’s the citizens to embrace a belief other than the six religions developed in Indonesia. However, in practice the dissolution of beliefs is actually carried out by community organizations. In this study, two things will be discussed namely: 1) What is the legal position of adherents of belief in the national legal system? 2) Do community organizations have the authority to dissolve religious beliefs? This research is normative juridical research, in which the problems in this research are analyzed qualitatively.


Author(s):  
Ari Wibowo ◽  
Michael Hagana Bangun

The provision of legal aid is one way to realize access to law and justice for the poor people provided by the state on the mandate of the constitution. Several regulations regarding legal aid have been issued by the state through the Act and its implementing regulations as well as from the Supreme Court or the Constitutional Court through the Supreme Court Regulations and the Constitutional Court's decisions. Legal aid is the constitutional right of every citizen to guarantee legal protection and guarantee equality before the law stipulated in Law Number 16 of 2011, the State is responsible for recognizing and protecting the human rights of every individual without differing backgrounds so that everyone has the right to be treated equally before the law is contained in Article 28D of the 1945 Constitution of the Republic of Indonesia. For the poor who experience legal problems in the form of injustice, they can request legal assistance from legal aid institutions that are regulated in legislation. The purpose of providing legal aid is to guarantee and fulfill the right for Legal Aid Recipients to gain access to justice, to realize the constitutional rights of all citizens in accordance with the principle of equality in law, to ensure the certainty that the implementation of Legal Aid is carried out equally across the territory of the Republic of Indonesia. , and to create an effective, efficient and accountable court.


2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Svitlychnyi Oleksandr ◽  

Today, the protection of intellectual property rights and legitimate interests of citizens is guaranteed by Article 55 of the Constitution of Ukraine, which provides and guarantees to everyone who uses all national forms of legal protection, protection of rights and freedoms in court. According to the second part of Art. 124 of the Basic Law, the jurisdiction of the courts extends to any legal dispute and all legal relations arising in the state. In addition to the constitutional right to administrative and judicial protection of intellectual property, the rules of special legislation in the field of intellectual property also determine other types of protection. In particular, part of the first article. 52 of the Law of Ukraine «On Copyright and Related Rights», to protect their copyrights and (or) related rights, entities have the right in accordance with the established procedure to apply to the court and other authorities in accordance with their competence. It is emphasized that the specifics of the protection of intellectual property is that there may be different ways to protect the violated subjective right to choose the person whose rights are violated. Today, the state system of intellectual property protection in Ukraine has an extensive system of state bodies involved in ensuring the protection of intellectual property. Based on the analysis of normative legal acts and scientific opinions, the article analyzes the activities of public administration entities in the field of intellectual property protection (Ministry for Development of Economy, Trade and Agriculture, National Intellectual Property Authority, Ukrainian Institute of Intellectual Property, Department of Intellectual Property). It is noted that in connection with the reorganization of the state system of intellectual property protection, instead of a three-tier structure, a two-tier structure is proposed. It is established that the current standing of the state system of intellectual property protection does not fully comply with international standards and principles in the field of intellectual property. It is proved that the presented state system of intellectual property protection contains significant shortcomings, the ways of improvement its activities are proposed. Keywords: state system, structure, protection, intellectual property, functions, improvement


2021 ◽  
Vol 20 (3) ◽  
pp. 453-468
Author(s):  
Sergei A. Belov ◽  
◽  
Alexander A. Soloviev ◽  
Vyacheslav V. Suyazov ◽  
◽  
...  

In the article "Unity of the system of state universities in today’s Russia", published in August 2020, it was proved that the constitutional right to education implies the need to support not only the leading universities of the country with the help of "academic leadership" programs, but all universities established by the state. Firstly, the creation of a university by the state presupposes responsibility on the part of the state as the founder for ensuring the conditions of its activity; secondly, students of all state universities equally have the right to demand from the state the creation of conditions for obtaining high-quality and modern education. In the development of the concept of unity of the higher education system, this article discusses specific practical steps to implement the approaches indicated in the article in terms of the use of public resources. The authors formulated a number of proposals regarding the state policy in the field of science and higher education in relation to the distribution of financial resources and other resources between institutions of higher education, and also proposed specific measures for their implementation, described by examples from practice.


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