Flying Together 2-ethiopia

ETHIOPIA
M. M. NINAN
3.The Arabic version of the Ecloga, another Byzantine law code published by Emperor Leo III
the Isaurian and his son in 726;
4."Precepts of the Old Testament", a collection of the Torah laws with some Christian
commentary.
'Ibn 'al-Assal's work is thus heavily influenced by Roman law, the first three of these sources
being themselves strongly influenced by Justinian's and earlier law codes. It was originally titled
Collection of Canons, but the Arabic version is more commonly known as The Nomocanon of
Ibn al-'Assal. It was intended to be used by the Coptic Christians of Egypt, who regarded it as
authoritative.
There are a few historical records claiming that this law code was translated into Ge'ez and
entered Ethiopia around 1450 in the reign of Zara Yaqob. Even so, its first recorded use in the
function of a constitution (supreme law of the land) is with Sarsa Dengel beginning in 1563.
The Fetha Negest remained officially the supreme law in Ethiopia until 1931, when a modernstyle
Constitution was first granted by Emperor Haile Selassie I. A completely modernised penal
code had already been introduced in 1930. Earlier, in 1921, shortly after becoming Regent, but
before being crowned as Emperor, Haile Selassie I had directed that certain "cruel and unusual"
punishments mandated in the Fetha, such as amputation of hands for conviction of theft, be
made to cease entirely. Even though Ethiopia's 1930 Penal Code replaced the criminal
provisions of the Fetha Nagast, the latter document provided the starting point for the code,
along with several European penal codes.
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