Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Acronyms and Abbreviations
- Preface
- Map 1 Provinces, Main Towns and Ethno-linguistic Groups of Eritrea
- 1 Introduction: The Eritrean Garrison State
- 2 Judicial Development in Independent Eritrea: Legal Pluralism and Political Containment
- 3 Rule of Law(lessness): The Special Court and the Judiciary
- 4 Democratic Curtailment: ‘Never Democracy, Always Control!’
- 5 Obliterating Civil Society: Denying Freedom of Organisation and Expression
- 6 The Eritrean Gulag Archipelago: Prison Conditions, Torture and Extrajudicial Killings
- 7 Everyday Life of Detention and Disappearances: Vulnerable Groups in a Population Under Siege
- 8 Minority Marginalisation: EPLF's Policies of ‘Cultural Superiority’
- 9 Diversity Diminished: Targeting the Kunama Minority Group
- 10 The Militarisation of Eritrean Society: Omnipresent and Never-Ending Military Service
- 11 Eritrea: Towards a Transition?
- Bibliography
- Index
3 - Rule of Law(lessness): The Special Court and the Judiciary
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 October 2014
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Acronyms and Abbreviations
- Preface
- Map 1 Provinces, Main Towns and Ethno-linguistic Groups of Eritrea
- 1 Introduction: The Eritrean Garrison State
- 2 Judicial Development in Independent Eritrea: Legal Pluralism and Political Containment
- 3 Rule of Law(lessness): The Special Court and the Judiciary
- 4 Democratic Curtailment: ‘Never Democracy, Always Control!’
- 5 Obliterating Civil Society: Denying Freedom of Organisation and Expression
- 6 The Eritrean Gulag Archipelago: Prison Conditions, Torture and Extrajudicial Killings
- 7 Everyday Life of Detention and Disappearances: Vulnerable Groups in a Population Under Siege
- 8 Minority Marginalisation: EPLF's Policies of ‘Cultural Superiority’
- 9 Diversity Diminished: Targeting the Kunama Minority Group
- 10 The Militarisation of Eritrean Society: Omnipresent and Never-Ending Military Service
- 11 Eritrea: Towards a Transition?
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
Rights are not things that are given or denied at will. We all should understand that rights are earned through struggle.
Ms. Fawzia Hashim Minister of Justice, Eritrean GovernmentYou have no right to ask!
EPLF security officer, responding to a group of mothers asking about the unlawful detention of their children (AI 2004)INTRODUCTION
The young Eritrean nation was established in 1991 with one great drawback: its freedom was secured from a dictatorship by a Marxist-Leninist-inspired liberation movement which was devoid of democratic experience and which abhorred dissent and divergent opinions. The political culture in the country at the time of independence was thus moulded by decades of war and driven by a government whose policies were anchored in ideological doctrines which lacked any regard for human rights. Consequently, as is illuminatingly described by an exiled Eritrean academic:
Eritreans became prisoners of the warrior culture that brought them independence. By the end of the first decade of independence, values such as dialogue, compromise and consensus needed to build a democratic society came to be regarded as symbols of weakness, even treason. (Hedru 2003: 436)
In order to understand how the contemporary rule of law(lessness) in Eritrea developed, one needs to understand how the Eritrean People's Liberation Front (EPLF) handled such matters during their long struggle to liberate Eritrea from Ethiopian rule.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- The African Garrison StateHuman Rights and Political Development in Eritrea, pp. 44 - 55Publisher: Boydell & BrewerPrint publication year: 2014