Recently, The Federal Supreme Court signed a memorandum of understanding with the Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Science and Higher Education to conduct a nationwide program of enhancing public legal consciousness as part of the education system in the country and for promoting legal awareness among the general public in the country.
According to Susanne Epple and Getachew Assefa, 2020, The prevalence of cultural and linguistic plurality, diverse system of beliefs and the corresponding provisions stated in the 1995 constitution makes the prevalence of social and legal consciousness more pronounced as citizens are entitled to their constitutional rights including the basic human rights.l Through the Constitution, each ethnic group has been given the space to promote its own culture and language, and legal pluralism is officially recognized.
Today, conflicts in the areas of family and civil law can legally be resolved using local laws, procedures and mechanisms, as long as the Constitution is not contradicted, international humans rights standards are not violated and all the parties in conflict have agreed. The same rights and respect have been given to religious laws, so that Sharia law and courts have received a special place in contemporary Ethiopia.1 the existing legal arrangement seems to offer many advantages, as it seeks to combine the diverse interests of its inhabitants and the government.
The Ethiopian legal system recognizes some very important aspects of traditional laws and regulations that do not contradict with the provisions of the legal system of the country. General practices in traditional conflict resolution methods also play an important role in increasing the level of legal consciousness among the population because these traditional methods of conflict resolution add value to social norms and standards of public behavior on special events like the next national election.
The prevalence of a nascent political pluralism in Ethiopia needs to be backed with the necessary public legal consciousness that is expected to accommodate different views and outlooks. But, what is legal consciousness? In a popular understanding of the concept, legal consciousness is an important component of social consciousness and determines normative legal relations between citizens and institutions operating in a country. In this sense, promoting legal consciousness is a tool that can be used to enhance the rule of law among citizens of any country wherever they might be.
Legal consciousness is a collection of understood and/or imagined to have understood, legal awareness of ideas, views, feelings and traditions imbibed through legal socialization; which reflects as legal culture among given individual, or a group, or a given society at large. The legal consciousness evaluates the existing law and also bears in mind an image of the desired or ideal law.
Legal consciousness is a state of being; legal socialization is the process to Legal consciousness; whereas legal awareness & legal mobilization are means to achieve the same. Why is promoting public legal consciousness so important in Ethiopia? One can suggest several reasons but more importantly unless citizens are well aware of their legal duties and their rights, they cannot exercise their rights both as human beings and citizens of a country. Although the Ethiopian law provides that the ignorance of the law is no excuse, legal consciousness does not come out of the blue or simply through mere intuition.
It citizens are aware of their rights and obligations through formal and informal legal trainings, peace, social harmony and mutual solidarity and protection of the rights of those who cannot defend themselves will prevail. Besides, the current crisis and ethnic based conflicts we observe in the country could have at least been reduced if not avoided through well targeted promotion and enhancement of public legal consciousness.
If we take the current 6th National Election that is just at the corner, if citizens were aware of their legal responsibilities and rights in electing and being elected, they should not have wasted a lot of time to register for voting. Quite a few strata of the Ethiopian society understand the importance of the law only in general terms but fail to perceive how the law applies to their daily life of affect their behaviors in their relations with each other.
Election is a constitutional obligation for all who qualify in the electorate. It demonstrates how people determine their future legal and social life by engaging in elections. This means that the voters cast their ballots for a party not in mechanical terms but also as a means of passing a verdict on deciding which party shall rule the country on their behalf over the next five years.
I have noticed that some persons post anti-election statements and gossips relating to the next election. Such level of emotionalism and irresponsibility demonstrates very poor level of legal consciousness even among those who claim they are educated.
Registering and voting in elections is not only a political raison deter for assuming political power but is also a legal precondition or the legitimacy of any elected government. Those who are working round the clock to disrupt the coming election in this country are inviting total public lawlessness and chaos that cannot be reversed easily and in the short run.
Promoting public social consciousness is to be conducted in a continuous manner by mainstreaming elementary legal education throughout all the stages of the educational system in Ethiopia. I have the opinion that civic education that is being provided in schools in this country needs to be reviewed from the perspective of increasing the awareness of the current generation in all aspects of socio-legal relations including the conduct of elections.
Millions of people in Ethiopia, including those who have not taken formal legal education are not so sure of their legal obligations and rights because concerned stakeholders have failed to discharge their responsibilities to carry out public legal education. As stated earlier, most of the crimes and trespassing of standard norms of social behavior manifested in Ethiopia as all forms of crimes, hooliganism, addiction triggered crimes, juvenile delinquency could have been avoided if social legal consciousness was cultivated among all stratum of the Ethiopian population.
Primary legal consciousness is to be in a child’s mind as part of the mental development process that a boy or a girl child should pass through. This means that although not its formal legal sense, legal consciousness among children should be promoted starting from a preschool level. Parents shoulder the major role in enabling children to grow in a legal conscious mindset.
The next election I expected to be conducted under strict observance of the rule of law. The CSOs who were selected in training voters can help to increase the legal consciousness of citizens starting with the fundamentals of the Ethiopian constitution. Such trainings should continue at the national level even after the 6th National Election has taken place. This will put a cornerstone for the creation of a legal conscious society which would fit into the creation of social harmony amidst the diversity among the public.
The fact that the date for the national election has been postponed creates an additional opportunity for promoting voter education and enhancement of general public social and legal consciousness with particular emphasis on the deliberations of the upcoming election.
BY SOLOMON DIBABA
The Ethiopian Herald May 19/2021
