Eritrea - Law guide

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This is an overview of an internet research on legislation in Eritrea (as of January 2024). This overview aims to serve as a starting point to facilitate the research into legal texts. However, it should not replace independent verification of the different legal texts as to their currency, validity, and accuracy. Please also bear in mind that official translations of legal texts only exist in rare cases.

Researching Laws

The Refworld database, operated by the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), provides the option to search for English translations of some legislative texts:

Some Eritrean laws are available on Natlex, a portal of the International Labour Organization (ILO):

Further information on the Eritrean legal system can be found under the following link:

To access the collection of national laws of Eritrea on ecoi.net, please follow this link.

Constitution

Globalex, the online publication of the Hauser Global Law School Program at New York University School of Law, published an overview of the Eritrean legal system in July and August 2023. According to the overview, the Eritrean transitional government established a Constitutional Commission in March 1994. The commission submitted a draft constitution to a Constituent Assembly, which in turn ratified the draft constitution on 23 May 1997. The ratified constitution has not yet entered into force (Dirar & Teweldebirhan, July/August 2023). In its report to the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child (CRC) from July 2023, the government of Eritrea writes that the implementation of the 1997 constitution has been “withheld”. The reasons given for this include “formidable existential threats” to which the country has been exposed since 1991 (Government of Eritrea, 21 July 2023, p. 8). In his report of May 2023, the UN Special Rapporteur on the human rights situation in Eritrea writes that the Eritrean president, Isaias Afewerki, has refused to implement the 1997 constitution for 30 years and has ruled the country “without the rule of law, a division of powers and any checks, balances or constraints on his power” (HRC, 9 May 2023, p. 9).

The 1997 Constitution can be found at the following link:

Criminal Code and Criminal Procedure Code

The US Library of Congress, a publicly accessible research library of the United States Congress, mentions in a blog entry from March 2016 that Eritrea was under Ethiopian rule between 1962 and 1991 and that the Ethiopian Penal Code of 1957 and the Ethiopian Criminal Procedure Code of 1961, among others, had applied to the population during this time. After achieving independence[1] in 1991, Eritrea decided in favour of a transitional period and continued to apply these laws with some amendments. The Library of Congress states that it has now (2016) added four newly published Eritrean legal texts to its collection, including the Penal Code and the Criminal Procedure Code. However, these laws, which were published in May 2015, would apparently “have yet to take effect”. The codes had been published without giving a precise date for their entry into force and the position of the Eritrean government was unclear in this context, according to the Library of Congress. The Minister of Justice, Fawzia Hashim, had indicated that the laws had entered into force. However, there was evidence that the transitional laws were still being applied, as the Library of Congress explains. For example, the Legal Tender Nakfa Currency Notes Regulations (No. 124/2015), which were passed in November 2015, refer to the transitional laws and not to the newer laws. The US Library of Congress notes that “it is possible that the implementation process could take a few years to complete” (Library of Congress, 7 March 2016).

In May 2023, the USDOS mentions that the implementation of the revised 2015 Penal Code is pending (USDOS, 15 May 2023, section II). In its report to the CRC in July 2023, the Eritrean government mentions that the “2015 Legal Codes are publicly available and preparations are underway for their enforcement across the country” (Government of Eritrea, 21 July 2023, p. 9).

The Ethiopian Penal Code of 1957 can be found on the Refworld online portal operated by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). The law was adopted by Eritrea upon independence and referred to as the Eritrean Transitional Penal Code. It was applied until the promulgation of the “Penal Code of the State of Eritrea, 2015”:

An unofficial translation of the Penal Code of the State of Eritrea from 2015 can be found at the following link:

The Criminal Procedure Code of June 2015 can be found at the following link:

Citizenship Law

The Citizenship Rights in Africa Initiative, an informal network of organisations, individuals and experts concerned with the right to nationality, writes in an undated country profile on Eritrea that nationality in Eritrea is governed by the 1997 Constitution. However, the Eritrean Nationality Proclamation of 1992, which was adopted in anticipation of independence in 1993, is still in force (Citizenship Rights in Africa Initiative, undated). In its July 2023 report to the CRC, the Eritrean government refers to the 1992 Eritrean Nationality Proclamation and states that “any person born to a father or mother of Eritrean origin in Eritrea or abroad has the right to an Eritrean identity” (Government of Eritrea, 21 July 2023, p. 16).

The Eritrean Nationality Proclamation can be found under the following link:

Sources

(Sources accessed at 23 January 2024)

[1] The 30-year conflict ended in 1991 after Eritrean fighters defeated government forces (CIA, updated 17 January 2024). In a referendum in April 1993, the overwhelming majority of Eritreans voted for independence (Encyclopaedia Britannica, updated 11 January 2024).

Cite as:

ACCORD - Austrian Centre for Country of Origin and Asylum Research and Documentation: ecoi.net Eritrea Law Guide, January 2024
https://www.ecoi.net/en/countries/eritrea/law-guide/

  • Austrian Red Cross
  • Austrian Centre for Country of Origin and Asylum Research and Documentation (ACCORD)

ecoi.net is run by the Austrian Red Cross (department ACCORD) in cooperation with Informationsverbund Asyl & Migration. ecoi.net is funded by the Asylum, Migration and Integration Fund, the Austrian Ministry of the Interior and Caritas Austria. ecoi.net is supported by ECRE & UNHCR.