State of Emergency: Shortcut to Quashing Discontent

Last week, Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn instructed the law enforcement and security forces to be vigilant and take any action necessary to ensure national security in the face of violent mass protests throughout the nation.

This time around, it was reported over EBC – the mouthpiece of the government – that the Council of Ministers of the FDRE has introduced a state of emergency decree effective as of October 8, 2016. It was justified as an effort to avert the dangerous state of affairs threatening not only peace and stability, but also the very existence of the public and the survival of the nation.

The Prime Minister was also clear in stating that fundamental human rights endorsed by the constitution have been suspended, susceptible for infringement as long as the state of emergency is valid – six solid months.

This piece will look deeper into this turn of events, and attempt to understand the essence of a state of emergency as written in the Constitution, as well as the potential impacts of the decree in addressing the situation the country has recently found itself in.

Legally, it is constitutionally viable for the Council of Ministers to decree a state of emergency should an external invasion, a breakdown of law and order endangering the constitutional order, a natural disaster or an epidemic occur.

The House of People’s Representatives is expected to endorse the state of emergency bill within 48 hours – or in 15 days’ time if the decree by the Council is made while the House is not in session.

Irrespective of the place of its enforcement, a state of emergency decree naturally guarantees extraordinary powers to any government wishing to take any action required to do away with an unprecedented national threat posed on a temporary basis.

An article in the Constitution mandates the Council of Ministers all the powers necessary to protect the country’s peace and sovereignty, as well as to maintain public security and law and order. In a more specific formulation, it is provided with the power to suspend such political and democratic rights contained in the constitution to the extent necessary to avert the conditions that have led to the requirement of the declaration of a state of emergency. Nevertheless, with regards the exercise of its emergency powers, the executive is not allowed to suspend or limit the rights provided for in four articles.

Without any doubt, anti-government political protests have been on the increase throughout the country since November 2015. What is happening in the Oromia and Amhara regions has been causing a lot of havoc on the federal and state authorities, which have been trying to maintain law and order at all cost. Consequently, clashes with the security forces, as well as the tragic human loss and property damage attributable to these violent confrontations, appear to be too much to tolerate any longer.

Understandably, the government has found it pretty hard to contain the growing level of violence using the regular law enforcement methods and procedures. Certainly, that degree of anxiety and frustration must have prompted it to resort to the present state of emergency, which is likely to authorise the employment and use of the combined pressure of the police, security and defence forces to quell the wave of protests.

The question as to whether or not the decree, pending Parliamentary approval, will actually resolve the impasse is what I want to focus on.

Ethiopia is a federal polity with a developing system of democratic governance in place. What the country grapples with at the moment is purely a gruesome political problem compounded by the unequal distribution of economic benefits between and among the country’s citizens and communities. It is a pity that the government has been inattentive to successive calls for reforms so as to address mounting public grievances.

Undeniably, this shortcoming has been repeatedly confessed on the part of the government authorities themselves, in addition to being voiced by the scores of street demonstrators on several occasions. If that is the reality graspable on the ground, therefore, a state of emergency would, I am afraid, do more harm than good should the threat be avoided in a strategic manner. In other words, such an executive decree as the one declared by the Council of Ministers is less likely to produce an enabling and conducive climate of public trust for inclusive political discourse, which needs to commence as a matter of urgency.

Finally, I was astonished to hear His Excellency, the Premier, promising that none of the fundamental human rights and freedoms of citizens would be encroached upon in the exercise of the decree. With due regards to his positive heart, I do challenge him for the invalidity of his unreliable and rather opportunistic statement, presumably added for a public relations’ consumption. His words are easier said than done, as no modern government has ever introduced a state of emergency decree unless it wants to restore the breakdown of law and order by curbing or limiting constitutionally guaranteed and protected rights and liberties from the very outset.


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