Abstract
The empowerment of ethnic communities is the cornerstone of the constitutional dispensation of the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia. The Constitution organises the state along ethnic lines by using ethnicity as the primary basis to demarcate its internal boundaries. At the level of the subnational units however, majority-minority tensions arise inevitably.
This chapter main claim is that, despite the constitutional commitment to uphold both individual and collective rights, the constitutional practice seems to give more weight to collective rights and frustrate claims based on the right of an individual to equal treatment. The author discusses the status and treatment of individuals that belong to ethnic minorities in a specific context, namely a case that was decided by the House of Federation the body that is responsible for interpreting the Constitution. Although the House of Federation, in its decision, affirmed the rights of the individuals to stand for elections, a closer scrutiny reveals that the decision fell short of entrenching the rights of individuals to stand for election irrespective of their linguistic ability. In fact, the decision of the House of Federation had the effect of disenfranchising a large number of the population in most urban areas of the different subnational units, undermining the constitutional commitment to equal respect for individual and group rights and creating a feeling of exclusion among individuals that belong to linguistic minorities.