Member of the NGOs/CSOs Task Force, established to review the draft charities and Societies Proclamation, a document recently released by the Ministry of Justice, and collect the views of the civil society organizations has formally submitted 40 pages of commentary and discussed with the Minister on May 14, 2008 in the afternoon at the latter's office.

Up on submitting the comments, representatives of the task force discussed various matters relating to the procedure, the general benchmarks of any progressive legislation and some of the articles stipulated in the proclamation. The task force noted that even though the time allowed for discussion and deliberations among civil society was so short, the taskforce has managed to organize CRDA membership meeting on May 12, 2008 and a general civil society meeting at the Kokeb Hall on May 13, 2008 and compiled the views from these short notice meetings.

The commentary consisted of two parts in which the task force discussed the general bench marks of progressive civil society legislation against the provisions of the proposed proclamation as well as the analyses of the merits and demerits of the articles of the proclamation in creating an enabling environment, ensuring sustenance and protecting the third Sector.

In the discussions held in the two meetings, participants had noted that though the very idea of participatory legislation sounds an excellent democratic practice, the expeditious process forces the civil society lose track of the discussion and this should be reconsidered. On the other hand, the proclamation should be revisited in line with the international laws, international, continental, regional treaties to which Ethiopia is signatory. In addition, like any progressive legislation, the proclamation should protect the fundamental freedoms of association, ensure integrity, sustainability of civil society organizations, make accountability and transparency prevail, and provide reasonable sanctions with variety and clarity.

The proposed draft proclamation consists of 12 Sections and 125 articles. The task Force constituted more than 20 NGOs/CSOs drawn from the faith based, secular, domestic and international domain. The full text of the Task Force's Comments, the draft Proclamation and a feature article submitted by a contract legal advisor of CRDA on the matter will be available on the CRDA Website soon.


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