{"id":276277,"date":"2019-05-17T10:35:43","date_gmt":"2019-05-17T14:35:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.google.com\/articles\/CAIiEIho-z5PiV7O6lI4UKQdVcQqFggEKg4IACoGCAowpa8mMJL_BTDRtAY?oc=5"},"modified":"2026-09-19T12:54:24","modified_gmt":"2026-09-19T16:54:24","slug":"addis-standard-opinion-hige-mengist-is-not-the-same-as-a-democratic-constitution","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/276277","title":{"rendered":"Addis Standard opinion: Hige Mengist is not the same as a democratic constitution"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>On 17 May 2019 Addis Standard published an opinion arguing that the Amharic phrase Hige Mengist, usually translated as constitution, is a poor match for a democratic constitution born from popular bargaining.<\/p>\n<img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" height=\"780\" width=\"780\" class=\"aligncenter size-large wp-image-354823\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/Justice-ethiopia.jpg?fit=780%2C780&#038;ssl=1\" alt=\"Addis Standard opinion: Hige Mengist is not the same as a democratic constitution\" \/>\n<p>The writer noted that Ethiopia\u2019s successive Hige Mengists were granted by sitting rulers, starting with Haile Selassie\u2019s 1931 charter, rather than preceding and creating government the way a constitutional compact is supposed to do. He suggested alternatives such as Hige Hager, law of the country, for a freer founding document.<\/p>\n<p>The essay landed during Abiy Ahmed\u2019s early reform talk, when many Ethiopians were debating whether the 1995 federal constitution should be rewritten or merely reinterpreted.<\/p>\n<p>Kept as constitutional politics archive, the piece is useful because it separates word games from power: who grants the highest law still matters more than how textbooks translate it.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Sources:<\/strong> <a href=\"https:\/\/addisstandard.com\/opinion-from-hige-mengist-to-hige-hager\/\">Addis Standard<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Ethiopia: From Hige Mengist to Hige Hager&nbsp;&nbsp;AllAfrica &#8211; Top Africa NewsOpinion &#8211; My primary objective in writing this very brief essay is to contend that &#8220;Hige Mengist&#8221; is a mistranslation of the English term &#8220;Constitution&#8221; despite the &#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":30,"featured_media":354823,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-276277","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-ethiopian-news"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/Justice-ethiopia.jpg?fit=1023%2C583&ssl=1","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p9NivD-19S5","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/276277","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/30"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=276277"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/276277\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":754796,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/276277\/revisions\/754796"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/354823"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=276277"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=276277"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=276277"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}