Abstract:
The thesis aimed to study the Ethiopian amnesty law as an object through examining its
legal foundation, the scope and its impact on victims’ right to remedy. It intended to
cover only the challenges on legal fissures and limitations in the application of amnesty
law, due to that qualitative research methodology and doctrinal type of legal research is
applied. Observing the findings of the study; before the 1931 constitution custom was the
legal source and the Monarchs of Ethiopia, as the highest organ of a state were adept the
power to grant amnesty as an act of individual clemency of theocratic origin. Nonetheless
the constitutional history of the country changed the legal source from custom to the
constitution. Contrary to the former constitutions, the FDRE constitution is silent about
the power to grant amnesty, thus currently such function become freckled practice that
exercised by the president of the republic and the legislative organ. Therefore through
inspecting the Ethiopian amnesty I recommend the Ethiopian government clearly to
provide the power to grant amnesty to the legislative organ, if the constitution is amended
in the near future. Concerning to the scope of the amnesty, the Ethiopian amnesty
provided by proclamation no.1096/2018, lacks clear criteria to determine amnesty
eligible crimes and offenders, such absence makes the amnesty law to fail to assure the
exclusion of constitutionally band crimes (i.e. international crimes and gross violations of
human rights) from its domain. Besides, the absence of clear amnesty eligible criteria
makes the amnesty law to provided blanket amnesty to all anti-terrorism proclamation
crimes and to all state of emergency crimes and failed to cover unjustly similarly footed
or comparable crimes which are regulated under the criminal code and different
proclamations. Such inequitable regulations of crimes under the domain of amnesty law
clearly violate perpetrators constitutional rights of equality. Thus where amnesty is
granted, I recommend the legislative to set clear amnesty eligible criteria to determine
amnesty eligible crimes and perpetrators under the ambit of amnesty. Further, through
examining the impact of the amnesty on victims right to remedy the thesis investigates
that the Ethiopian amnesty flouted victims’ right to remedy thru ignoring victims in the
amnesty process. Thus in the feature where amnesty is in need, depending on the purpose
of amnesty, I recommend that the amnesty law to integrate provisions which guarantee
victims participation in the amnesty process through reconciliation commission or any
other administrative organ with the task to assuring the right of remedy of victim