The current Constitution of Ethiopia, which is the supreme law of the Federal Republic of Ethiopia, was adopted by the Transitional Government of Ethiopia

Transitional Government of Ethiopia

The Transitional government of Ethiopia was established immediately after the fall of the Dergue regime. It was led by Meles Zenawi of Ethiopia. Zenawi remains the prime minister of Ethiopia to this day....

 in December 1994 and came into force in August 1995. The constitution

Constitution

A constitution is a set of fundamental principles or established precedents according to which a state or other organization is governed. These rules together make up, i.e. constitute, what the entity is...

 was drawn up by the Constituent Assembly

Ethiopian Constituent Assembly election, 1994

Elections for a Constituent Assembly were held in Ethiopia on 5 June 1994 in order to form a body to draw up a new constitution. They were the first elections after the overthrow of the Mengistu regime at the end of the Ethiopian Civil War in 1991, and the first ever multi-party elections in the...

 elected in June of that year.

The constitution consists of 106 articles in 11 chapters. It provides for a federal government

Federation

A federation , also known as a federal state, is a type of sovereign state characterized by a union of partially self-governing states or regions united by a central government...

 of nine ethnic-based regions

Regions of Ethiopia

||Ethiopia is divided into 9 ethnically-based administrative regions and two chartered cities...

 governed by a parliament

Parliament

A parliament is a legislature, especially in those countries whose system of government is based on the Westminster system modeled after that of the United Kingdom. The name is derived from the French , the action of parler : a parlement is a discussion. The term came to mean a meeting at which...

 divided into a House of People's Representatives

House of People's Representatives

The Federal Parliamentary Assembly of Ethiopia has two chambers. The lower house is the House of Peoples' Representatives with 547 members , elected for five-year terms in single-seat constituencies.-Speakers of the House of Peoples'...

 and House of Federation

House of Federation

The House of Federation is the upper house of the bicamerial Parliament of Ethiopia of Ethiopia. It has 112 members....

. The constitution expressly provides for a set of basic human rights

Human rights

Human rights are "commonly understood as inalienable fundamental rights to which a person is inherently entitled simply because she or he is a human being." Human rights are thus conceived as universal and egalitarian . These rights may exist as natural rights or as legal rights, in both national...

; Article 13 specifies that these rights and freedoms will be interpreted according to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights

Universal Declaration of Human Rights

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights is a declaration adopted by the United Nations General Assembly . The Declaration arose directly from the experience of the Second World War and represents the first global expression of rights to which all human beings are inherently entitled...

, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights

International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights

The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights is a multilateral treaty adopted by the United Nations General Assembly on December 16, 1966, and in force from March 23, 1976...

 and other international instruments adopted by Ethiopia. The document further guarantees that all Ethiopian languages

Languages of Ethiopia

There are 90 individual languages of Ethiopia according to Ethnologue . Most belong to the Afro-Asiatic language family , with Nilo-Saharan languages also spoken by the nation's Nilotic ethnic minorities.Charles A...

 will enjoy equal state recognition, although Amharic

Amharic language

Amharic is a Semitic language spoken in Ethiopia. It is the second most-spoken Semitic language in the world, after Arabic, and the official working language of the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia. Thus, it has official status and is used nationwide. Amharic is also the official or working...

 is specified as the working language of the federal government. Ethiopia has a tradition of highly personal and strongly centralized government, a pattern the Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Democratic Front

Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Democratic Front

The Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Democratic Front is the ruling political coalition in Ethiopia. It is an alliance of four other groups: the Oromo Peoples' Democratic Organization , the Amhara National Democratic Movement , the South Ethiopian Peoples' Democratic Front The Ethiopian People's...

 (the present government) has followed despite constitutional limits on federal power.

The first elections held under the provisions of the 1995 Constitution were the 2000 general elections

Ethiopian general election, 2000

Ethiopia held general elections on 14 May and 31 August 2000, for seats in both its national and in several Regional government councils. although several opposition parties boycotted the election, 17 parties including the All-Amhara People's Organization, the Southern Ethiopia Peoples' Democratic...

; the 1995 general elections

Ethiopian general election, 1995

General elections were held in Ethiopia on 7 and 18 May 1995 for seats in its Council of People's Representatives; elections in the Afar, Somali, and Harari Regions were delayed until 28 June to assign experienced personnel who could solve possible conflicts and irregularities...

were held in May, three months before this constitution came into force.

External links

• Constitution of Ethiopia