The Making of the Eritrean Constitution: The Dialectic of Process and Substance

by Bereket Habte Selassie, Selassie H. Bereket

For the first time in their history, Eritreans were engaged, as a sovereign people, in the making of the basic document by which they would be governed. Regarded by Eritreans as the culmination of their legitimate struggle for national self determination, the Constitution became an integral part of this continuous and crucial struggle. Written by a scholar and practitioner who led the process of constitution drafting in the newly independent Eritrea from 1994 to 1997, this book analyzes the process from beginning to end, recording in concise summaries the intensive public debates held in village and town meetings during that three-year period. In his book, Bereket Habte Selassie identifies the constitution as a bulwark of a democratic system of government and defines a good constitution as one tested by the nature and degree of public participation in its making, hence his careful attention to the drafting process. In addition to describing the process of constitution making, he also uses chapter-to-chapter text analysis and commentaries to engage the reader in important discussions on the Eritrean constitution itself.

326 pages, Hardcover

First published July 1, 2002