Chapter 5: The legal and institutional arrangements of the Ethiopian federation This chapter will explore the Ethiopian federation through its legal and
institutional arrangements, basically defined in the transitional charter of 1991,
various transitional government proclamations and the federal constitution.
The aim is to reveal whether these formal structures are in line with the
fundamental federal principles mentioned in chapter two on theoretical
approaches to federations. As an introduction, the chapter will start off with a
brief account of the constitutional history of Ethiopia, in order to place the
post-1991 legal arrangements in a historical context.
King’s definition of a federation will be the point of departure for the
analysis of the various legal documents that outline the Ethiopian federal
arrangements. Let us quickly wind back and see that he defined a federation
“as an institutional arrangement, taking form of a sovereign state, and
distinguished from other such states solely on the fact that its central
government incorporates regional units into its decision procedures on some
constitutionally entrenched basis” (King 1982:77). Firstly, I will investigate on
which basis the territorial units of the Ethiopian federation were established.
Secondly, I will go into how these units are represented at the central level, with
a particular focus on the organisation of the legislature (bicameralism).
Thirdly, I will consider whether or not the regional units have a constitutional
guarantee for their representation at the central level. Do the Ethiopian legal
arrangements include a commitment to constitutionalism, which limits the
government to such an extent that the federal structures cannot be altered
without the consent of the regional units? The chapter will wind up by
discussing the peculiarities and ambiguities of the Ethiopian federal
arrangements with reference to federal theory and other federal practices.
