COMPLETENESS A historical and comparative study of continental European codification reveals that codification aims at being complete. Although ‘completeness’ has several implications in different literature, Weiss has identified three sub-elements of completeness in the sense of (a) exclusive, gap-less, and comprehensive as the second core feature of continental European codification. In this article each of these elements will be briefly discussed, followed by the analysis of the Ethiopian civil code. 

How many countries have ‘Codes’ as a basic legal source in the world? In how many countries' legal systems does the term ‘Codification’ exist? Are there common features of codification used as a basis for comparison and analysis? Although the exact number of codes is uncertain today, the UNESCO-sponsored survey on the basic sources of various legal systems in 1957 reveals that from 110 countries 73 countries had legal sources called ‘codes’ and the work of ‘codification’. In other words, codification exists in 67 percent of known legal systems, each consisting of an average of 6 codes. This figure suggests that codification has become prevalent in most existing legal systems.

Modernization relies on law as the means of transformation. In these great processes of transformation, day after day, many more demands for new legislation have been proposed as a reaction to different social, political, economic and environmental situations which seemingly develop independently or deliberately. Governments need effective laws to govern these transformation processes by which they achieve their political objectives and public policies. Such needs may originate from different sources such as different ministries, a commission of inquiry, politicians, pressure groups, or sometimes from donors.

It has often been considered that every addition of a new law in a statute book is amending a prior existing law. As a result, analyzing legislative proposals concerning and affecting rights and privileges under existing and established law continues to be an important subset of Legislative Drafting. A person analyzing the legislative proposal should be familiar with the existing relevant law or know where it can be found. Existing laws, among other things, constitute human rights treaties that a country has ratified and form part of its domestic law – either by way of ‘legislative’ or ‘automatic’ incorporation. Legislative and Automatic incorporation of human rights treaties into domestic law is traditionally known as ‘Dualistic’ and ‘Monistic’ methods, respectively. Regardless of whether a domestic law society is monist or dualist, one way of complying with human rights treaties is through analyzing legislative proposals as to whether domestic draft laws accord with the values and principles enshrined under human rights treaties.

This essay examines the normative contemporary constitutional law question ‘how constitutionality of laws is controlled?’ under Ethiopian and Nigerian Federal Systems. In constitutional terms, both this question and federal systems require a written constitution that serve as a fundamental or basic law and placed hierarchically at the highest peak.

"No law, regulation, directive or practice shall, in so far as it is inconsistent with this Proclamation, have force or effect with respect to matters provided for by this Proclamation”. Introduction Paradoxically, in most modern societies, the larger proportion of the law—delegated legislation—is not made by elected lawmakers or the proper legislature. To an increasing extent, law in these countries is made through the Executive branch, not the parliament. The common practice for Acts of Parliament to bestow power (through empowering acts) to make regulations, particularly to government Ministers, is an obvious manifestation of this development.

Before considering the subject matter of this article, a brief explanation of the history of Ethiopian Codes and constitutional development is helpful because it focuses attention on the key issues that I would like to raise. The Ethiopian legal system constitutes the Constitution, international treaties, codified laws, and statues as a primary source of law. This essay, however, limits itself to codified laws and primary legislation.