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Re-establishing a Multi-Party State: Some Constitutional Lessons from the Seychelles

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 November 2008

John Hatchard
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Extract

Several African countries have found that the road towards the reintroduction of multi-party politics is not easy. This short article examines aspects of constitutional developments in the Seychelles, and argues that three fundamental criteria are necessary for a genuine return to democratic pluralism: the implementation of a proper and fairly organised electoral process, the drafting of a new constitution which represents the wishes of the people, and the effective de-linking of ruling party and government.

Type
Articles
Information
The Journal of Modern African Studies , Volume 31 , Issue 4 , December 1993 , pp. 601 - 612
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1993

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References

1 See, for example, Franda, Marcus, The Seychelles: unquiet islands (Boulder and Aldershot, 1982),Google Scholar and Houbert, Jean, ‘The Indian Ocean Creole Islands: geo-politics and decolonisation’, in The Journal of Modern African Studies (Cambridge), 30, 3, 09 1992, pp. 465–84.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

2 Constitution of the Republic of the Seychelles Decree, 1979, Section 4 (b).

3 See Report of the Commonwealth Observer Group on the Kenyan Elections (Commonwealth Secretariat, London, 1993), p. 10.Google Scholar

4 Elections to the Constitutional Commission in Seychelles. Report of the Commonwealth Observer Group (London, 1992), p. 8.Google Scholar

5 Uganda Constitutional Commission, Guidelines on Constitutional Issues (Kampala, 1991), p. 1.Google Scholar

6 Quoted from the Report of the Commonwealth Observer Group, 1992, p. 8.Google Scholar

7 The Namibian Constitution provides a striking example, as may be seen from Hatchard, John and Slinn, Peter, ‘Namibia: the constitutional path to freedom’, in Commonwealth Law Bulletin (London), 17, 1991, pp. 644–65.Google Scholar

8 For example, the Constitutions of Namibia (1990), Zambia (1991), and Sierra Leone (1991) limit their country's President to two five-year terms, as against two four-year terms in Ghana (1992).Google Scholar

9 Except, curiously, in Article 15, where the right to life is not infringed by a law ‘reasonably justifiable in a democratic society’. This may have been an oversight by the drafters.

10 See European Court of Justice, Denmark, Norway, Sweden and Netherlands v Greece (3321–3/67, 3344/67), report dated 5 November 1969.Google Scholar

11 United Nations Human Rights Committee, GC5/13, HRC 36, p. 110.

12 Indeed, in Zambia a similar constitutional provision led to the use of emergency powers, including the frequent use of detention without trial, for over 20 years.

13 Liberal (Victoria), 24 12 1992, p. 10.Google Scholar

14 See Hatchard, John, ‘Funding Political Parties: The Political Parties (Finance) Act, 1992’, in Journal of African Law (London), 37, 1, 1993, pp. 101–3.Google Scholar