DAMBI DOLLO UNIVERSITY
SCHOOL OF LAW
BUSINESS LAW LLM PROGRAMME
LL.M Research Concept Note
Submitted by: LETA BESHA YADESSA
Id No: PGW/035/22
Title – Access to Court in Cases of Land Expropriation in Ethiopia:
Assessment of Legal Gaps in Ethiopia:
{comparative Analysis}
1. Introduction
Expropriation is the act of a government claiming privately owned property against the wishes of
the owners, ostensibly to be used for the benefit of the overall public. Expropriation raises
justifiable concerns ranging from the acceptable reasons for expropriation to the process for
recourse and the scope and amount of fair compensation.1
Currently, the Ethiopian federal government has adopted legislation governing “Expropriation of
Land for Public Purposes, Payment of Compensation and Re-settlement of Displaced People” in
2019 by proclamation no.1161/2019 and the Regional State has opted to apply the principles
enshrined in these federal laws instead of adopting its own counterpart. In the first place, it is
believed that since the power to enact laws for the utilization and conservation of land is vested
in the federal government2, the application of this law maintains uniformity of practice regarding
payment of compensation throughout the country.
In the application of these laws there could be compliant as to the application of it in relation to
substitution of the land and the amount of the compensation. In that case there is rare access or
chance for the aggrieved party to bring its case to the regular court as the laws take away that
power from the regular court except in the case of the Appeal. The case of the Appeal by itself is
not accessible as it gives the power to the high court, even if the amount of the claim falls in the
1
https://www.investopedia.com/terms/e/expropriation.asp, visited on August26, 2022
2
FDRE Constitution, 1995, Art.51 (5)
first instance or woreda court. This exposes the party to unnecessary expense, as the high court
could be too far from many woredas.
Therefore, the aim of this study is assessing legal gap of the access to Court in Cases of Land
Expropriation in Ethiopia.
2. Statement of the Problem
The FDRE Constitution guarantees the right of access to justice over any justiciable matters
pursuant to Article 37. This inter alia allows everyone to bring justiciable matter to competent
bodies with judicial power. Therefore, restricting or prohibiting this right either by law or
practice is against constitutional principle and such unconstitutional law and practice pave the
way for government organs to arbitrarily use of their power.
Thus, the paper is going to assess legal gap of the access to Court in Cases of Land Expropriation
in Ethiopia in which there are high cases of expropriation currently, by making comparison with
some other selected countries of the world.
3. Objective of the study
The main objective of this paper is to assess inconsistency of the existing laws with regard to
access to justice in Cases of Land Expropriation in Ethiopia. Legal gap is going to be scrutinized
from provisions of laws. The scrutiny shows disparity between the FDRE Constitution and
Expropriation laws, being compared with other countries.
4. Significance of the Study
This research will help to: set the possible legal reform in the area and it will also contributes its
own inputs for doing other and further researches
5. Scope of the Research
The scope of this research is delimited on access to Court in Cases of Land Expropriation in
Ethiopia in which there are so many expropriation cases currently.
6. Research Methodology
2
The study centers on multidisciplinary research method or it employs mainly desktop based, or
library-based or document analysis. Thus, FDRE constitution, urban land lease holding
proclamation enacted by the federal government proclamation No.721/2012, urban land lease
holding regulation of Oromia regional state No.182/2016, The Newly Enacted Expropriation
proclamation of Ethiopia (Procl.1161/2019), articles, different commentaries, journals, thesis or
senior essays, pertaining to the title among other things, are going to be explored. In addition to
the above, the study will explore the practice and experience of some countries’ is going to be
assessed.
