Citizenship is the status of a person recognized under the custom or law of a sovereign state or local jurisdiction as a member of or belonging to the state. Each state is free to determine the conditions under which it will recognize persons as its citizens, and the conditions under which that status will be withdrawn. Recognition by a state as a citizen generally carries with it recognition of civil, political, and social rights which are not afforded to non-citizens.
Politics of Eritrea takes place in a framework of a single-party presidential republican totalitarian dictatorship. The President officially serves as both head of state and head of government. The People's Front for Democracy and Justice is the only political party legally permitted to exist in Eritrea. The popularly elected National Assembly of 150 seats, formed in 1993 shortly after independence from Ethiopia, elected the current president, Isaias Afewerki. There have been no general elections since its official independence in 1993. The country is governed under the constitution of 1993. A new constitution was ratified in 1997, but has not been implemented. Since the National Assembly last met in 2002, President Isaias Afwerki has exercised the powers of both the executive and legislative branches of government.
Roman law is the legal system of ancient Rome, including the legal developments spanning over a thousand years of jurisprudence, from the Twelve Tables, to the Corpus Juris Civilis ordered by Eastern Roman Emperor Justinian I. Roman law forms the basic framework for civil law, the most widely used legal system today, and the terms are sometimes used synonymously. The historical importance of Roman law is reflected by the continued use of Latin legal terminology in many legal systems influenced by it, including common law.
A legal custom is the established pattern of behavior that can be objectively verified within a particular social setting. A claim can be carried out in defense of "what has always been done and accepted by law". Related is the idea of prescription; a right enjoyed through long custom rather than positive law.
A person is a being that has certain capacities or attributes such as reason, morality, consciousness or self-consciousness, and being a part of a culturally established form of social relations such as kinship, ownership of property, or legal responsibility. The defining features of personhood and consequently what makes a person count as a person differ widely among cultures and contexts.
The Emperor of Ethiopia was the hereditary ruler of the Ethiopian Empire, until the abolition of the monarchy in 1975. The Emperor was the head of state and head of government, with ultimate executive, judicial and legislative power in that country. A National Geographic article called imperial Ethiopia "nominally a constitutional monarchy; in fact [it was] a benevolent autocracy".
The Constitution of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam is the current constitution of Vietnam, adopted on 28 November 2013 by the Thirteenth National Assembly, and took effect on 1 January 2014. It is the fourth constitution adopted by the Vietnamese government since the political reunification of the country in 1976.
Islam is the second largest religion in Ethiopia, with 36% (36,290,000) of the people professing the religion as of 2020.
The Workers' Party of Ethiopia was a Marxist–Leninist communist party in Ethiopia from 1984 to 1991. The Workers' Party of Ethiopia was founded in 1984 by the Derg, the ruling provisional government of Ethiopia, as the vanguard party for a planned future socialist state. In 1987, the Workers' Party of Ethiopia became the ruling party after the establishment of the People's Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, and the only legal political party until it was disbanded in 1991.
The Parliament of Ethiopia consists of two chambers:
Emperor Haile Selassie proclaimed a revised constitution in November 1955 of the Empire of Ethiopia. This constitution was prompted, like its 1931 predecessor, by a concern with international opinion. Such opinion was particularly important at a time when some neighboring African states were rapidly advancing under European colonial tutelage and Ethiopia was pressing its claims internationally for the incorporation of Eritrea, where an elected parliament and more modern administration had existed since 1952.
The 1931 Constitution of Ethiopia was the first modern constitution for Ethiopia, intended to officially replace the Fetha Nagast, which had been the supreme law since the Middle Ages. It was promulgated in "an impressive ceremony" held 16 July 1931 in the presence of Emperor Haile Selassie, who had long desired to proclaim one for his country. In the preface to his translation of this constitution into English, William Stern writes, "It is worthy of note that this was the first instance in history where an absolute ruler had sought voluntarily to share sovereign power with the subjects of his realm." This statement, however, is not completely truthful, as the adoption of a constitution was somewhat pressed by international opinion.
The Constitution of Eritrea is the supreme law of Eritrea. It provides the legal foundation for the existence of the State and source of legal authority. It sets out the rights and duties of its citizens, and defines the structure of government. Despite its ratification by the legislature, the constitution has yet to be implemented.
The rule according to a higher law is a statement which expresses that no law may be enforced by the government unless it conforms with certain universal principles of fairness, morality, and justice. Thus, the rule according to a higher law may serve as a practical legal criterion to qualify the instances of political or economical decision-making, when a government, even though acting in conformity with clearly defined and properly enacted legal rules, still produces results which many observers find unfair or unjust.
Constitutionalism is "a compound of ideas, attitudes, and patterns of behavior elaborating the principle that the authority of government derives from and is limited by a body of fundamental law".
Personhood is the status of being a person. Defining personhood is a controversial topic in philosophy and law and is closely tied with legal and political concepts of citizenship, equality, and liberty. According to law, only a natural person or legal personality has rights, protections, privileges, responsibilities, and legal liability.
Many changes were made during the reign of Haile Selassie toward the modernization of Ethiopia upon his accession as Emperor on November 2, 1930, as well as before, beginning from the time he effectively controlled Ethiopia in 1916 as Regent Plenipotentiary, Ras Tafari.
Ethnic federalism is a federal system of national government in which the federated units are defined and segregated by ethnicity, in certain cases multi-ethnic regions would have to be partitioned causing internal displacement of people due to large internal population transfers. Related terms are multi-ethnic federalism and ethnofederalism.
The Federal Supreme Court of Ethiopia is the highest court in Ethiopia. It was established by the FDRE Constitution in 1994 and is currently located in Addis Ababa. Article 78 of the Constitution establishes the judiciary and at the top is the FSC.By the Constitution, the Federal Supreme Court has "the power of cassation over any final court decision containing a basic error of law".In 2018, Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed appointed Meaza Ashenafi to be the first female president of the Federal Supreme Court.
The legal systems of Eritrea go as far back as the 14th century. Before independence, Eritrea was colonized by Italy and later occupied by Britain, therefore subjugated to those nations' laws through the World War II era. In the 1950s, the United Nations gave neighboring Ethiopia power and responsibility for Eritrea, and thus its legal system mirrored that of Ethiopia. After gaining its independence in 1993, Eritrea began to draft its own constitution, which was implemented in 1997. Much of Eritrea's judicial system is spelled out in this Constitution. However, even today, customary law has remained the most prevalent law in the lives of most Eritreans.
