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يحتل الدستور مكانة محورية في كل منظومة قانونية. فهو القانون الأساسي الذي تبنى عليه كل مؤسسات الدولة وقوانينها، وهو الضامن الأول لحقوق وحريات المواطنين. لذا، تعد عملية وضع دستور جديد أو عملية تعديل دستور قائم حدثاً استثنائياً وتاريخياً في حياة الشعوب. وفي المراحل الانتقالية بالذات، حيث تكون الدول حديثة الخروج من حكم دكتاتوري أو عسكري أو استعماري أو عنصري، تحظى عملية صياغة مشروع الدستور الجديد للبلاد بأهمية أكبر وبرمزية خاصة.

The Constitution of Kenya (2010) includes a strong Bill of Rights, which extensively covers political freedoms as well as socio-economic and cultural rights. In addition, the enactment of legislation, rules and procedures to operationalize the constitutional principles and to obliterate distortions and barriers to full enjoyment of these rights continues.

What are women and youth commissions? What purpose do they serve? How are they formed? Do they further marginalize women and youth or bring them into the folds of decision-making?

International IDEA and the South African Institute for Advanced Constitutional, Public, Human Rights and International Law (SAIFAC), are hosting a two-day conference with a focus on evaluating the performance of the South African Constitution.

The idea that the performance of a constitution can be evaluated is a relatively recent one.

Are there better or worse ways of drafting constitutions for the purposes of achieving desired outcomes? How are we to understand the interaction between particular provisions or elements of a constitution and the concrete realities that unfold after the moment of constitution drafting?

Starting today, staff of the Independent Electoral Commission of Lesotho (IEC) will meet up in Maseru for a five-day BRIDGE workshop on strategic planning. The workshop takes place in the context of the IEC’s engagement to develop a new strategic plan foreseen to guide the EMBs work in the coming years.

The debate over presidential terms and tenures continue to create challenges for democratic development in Africa – but are we seeing a light at the end of the tunnel?

TUNIS, TUNISIA – International IDEA will launch Democratic Transitions: Conversations with World Leaders (available in Arabic, French and English) at 18:00 on 25 April 2016 at the Golden Tulip Gammarth Hotel.

The conflict that engulfed Côte d’Ivoire in 2002 divided the country for eight years, with the south controlled by the Government and the north by rebel forces.

The violence and divisions in the country were responsible for the reversal of major economic gains that had been made since independence, and the political uncertainties threatened regional stability.

The African Union (AU) has made considerable strides in its efforts towards democracy promotion and peacebuilding since 2000, when it adopted its Constitutive Act.

This Act brought about an interesting paradigm shift away from the doctrine of non-interference to one of paying attention to human rights abuses within its member states.

The paradox of poverty amidst Africa’s abundant natural resource endowment

The elections organised on Africa’s Super Sunday a week ago have put the current status of democracy on full display. In Benin and Cape Verde, fierce electoral campaigns by political parties and candidates led to leadership turnover in the presidential office and national assembly, respectively. In Congo, Niger and Zanzibar, on the other hand, election day on 20 March tells the story of more reluctant marches toward democratic transition–if not departures from the democracy path.

The African Union (AU) is one of the world’s most advanced regional organizations in terms of its mandate and instruments to create, protect and promote democracy in its member states.

On 20 March, five countries and one semi-autonomous archipelago in Africa are going to the polls – get ready for the presidential elections in Benin, Niger and the Republic of Congo, the elections to the national assembly in Cape Verde, the rerun of presidential and assembly elections in Zanzibar and the constitutional referendum in Senegal.

The position of women in Tunisia is largely credited for being among the most advanced and liberated in the West Asia and North Africa region. Despite many decades of gains however, women are still largely excluded from positions of power and decision-making both within their political parties and the government.

Voter turnout statistics provide us with a rough indicator of citizen participation in electoral processes. Looking back at 2015, to what extent did African voters participate on election day, and what conclusions can we draw from this?

In 1954 Doria Shafik, an Egyptian woman and feminist, staged a hunger strike to protest the creation of a new constitutional committee with no women in it. Eight days later she ended her strike after having received a written statement from then-president Mohamed Naguib saying that he committed to a constitution that respected the rights of women.

International IDEA is pleased to join the rest of the world in celebrating International Women's Day 2016.

One of the key issues on which there has emerged a broad consensus in contemporary African politics is the need for the fuller participation of women in public affairs and their greater representation in public institutions.