Ethiopia Ethiopia, , om, Itiyoophiyaa, so, Itoobiya, ti, ኢትዮጵያ, Ítiyop'iya, aa, Itiyoppiya officially the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, is a landlocked country in the Horn of Africa. It shares borders with Eritrea to the ...

has had four

constitutions A constitution is the aggregate of fundamental principles or established precedents that constitute the legal basis of a polity, organisation or other type of entity and commonly determine how that entity is to be governed. When these prin ...

: *

1931 Constitution of Ethiopia The 1931 Constitution of Ethiopia was the first modern constitution of the Ethiopian Empire, intended to officially replace the ''Fetha Nagast'', which had been the supreme law since the Middle Ages. It was promulgated in "an impressive ceremony" ...

1955 Constitution of Ethiopia Emperor Haile Selassie proclaimed a revised constitution in November 1955 of the Ethiopian Empire. This constitution was prompted, like its 1931 predecessor, by a concern with international opinion. Such opinion was particularly important at a ti ...

1987 Constitution of Ethiopia The Constitution of the People's Democratic Republic of Ethiopia (), also known as the 1987 Constitution of Ethiopia, was the third constitution of Ethiopia, and went into effect on 22 February 1987 after a referendum on 1 February of that year. ...

1995 Constitution of Ethiopia The Constitution of the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia (), also known as the 1995 Constitution of Ethiopia, is the supreme law of Ethiopia. The constitution came into force on 21 August 1995 after it was drawn up by the Constituent Asse ...

A proposed revision of the 1955 constitution was released in 1974, but it had no legal effect, and was soon forgotten in the events of the

Ethiopian Revolution The Derg (also spelled Dergue; , ), officially the Provisional Military Administrative Council (PMAC), was the military junta that ruled Ethiopia, then including present-day Eritrea, from 1974 to 1987, when the military leadership formally " c ...

. Until the adoption of the first of these constitutions, the concepts of Ethiopian government had been codified in the ''

Kebra Nagast The Kebra Nagast, var. Kebra Negast ( gez, ክብረ ነገሥት, ), or The Glory of the Kings, is a 14th-century national epic from Ethiopia, written in Ge'ez by Nebure Id Ishaq of Axum, by the office of Abuna Abba Giyorgis and at the command ...

'' (which presented the concept that the legitimacy of the

Emperor of Ethiopia The emperor of Ethiopia ( gez, ንጉሠ ነገሥት, nəgusä nägäst, "King of Kings"), also known as the Atse ( am, ዐፄ, "emperor"), was the hereditary monarchy, hereditary ruler of the Ethiopian Empire, from at least the 13th century ...

was based on its asserted descent from king

Solomon Solomon (; , ),, ; ar, سُلَيْمَان, ', , ; el, Σολομών, ; la, Salomon also called Jedidiah (Hebrew language, Hebrew: , Modern Hebrew, Modern: , Tiberian Hebrew, Tiberian: ''Yăḏīḏăyāh'', "beloved of Yahweh, Yah"), ...

of ancient Israel), and the '' Fetha Nagast'' (a legal code used in Ethiopia at least as early as 1450 to define the rights and responsibilities of the monarch and subjects, as defined by the

Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church The Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church ( am, የኢትዮጵያ ኦርቶዶክስ ተዋሕዶ ቤተ ክርስቲያን, ''Yäityop'ya ortodoks täwahedo bétäkrestyan'') is the largest of the Oriental Orthodox Churches. One of the few Chris ...

).Edmond J. Keller, ''Revolutionary Ethiopia: From Empire to People's Republic'' (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1991), p. 69

References

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