The bill on anti-terrorism law introduced numerous rules that mark a major departure from existing and widely recognized legal principles. The bill gives substantial powers to security forces and provides new obligations that impose serious burdens on citizens' legal as well as contractual rights.

Leasers of immovable and movable properties, such as houses and vehicles, are targets of the new bill. After the adoption of the bill by the Parliament, owners leasing their properties need to report the contractual arrangement to the nearest police station.  This defies the principle of freedom and private contracts.

Leasing is a juridical act exercised on movable or immovable property by the owner to obtain pecuniary benefits while offering the lessee the right to an exclusive use and enjoyment of the property. A Lease contains a reciprocal obligation for the lessee to use the property for a legitimate contractual purpose against the payment of rent for a definite or indefinite period. Leasing property constitutes one of the basic rights legally endowed to owners under the old Ethiopian customary laws and the civil code of 1960.

Following the 1974 upheaval in Ethiopia, like most laws regulating and protecting the rights of private properties, the legal right to lease houses, came under fire. Inspired by communist demagoguery, which was the raison d'être for the promulgation of the Government Ownership of Urban Lands and Extra Houses Proclamation issued in 1975. In this proclamation; "all extra houses" under lease contracts, were revoked.

This proclamation also legitimized government's tragic usurpation of all "extra houses". As a result, contractual relations created with the lessee were transferred to the new owner of confiscated property - the government and it was also prohibited for a ". . . person, family, organization (except government bodies and kebelles) . . . to obtain income from urban land or house rent". Moreover, during the early periods of the defunct military regime, owners of extra houses were temporarily subjected to deprivation of certain civil rights and suffered political marginalization on account of their relationship with their hard earned property.

More than a decade after this proclamation was issued in 1975, the rhetorical pledge made by the military regime to alleviate urban dwelling houses and provide decent shelter to the homeless, shifted to a shameful legal concession The Proclamation allowed dispossessed residential owners and lessees of government owned houses to conclude lease and sublease agreements respectively, contrary to its early prohibition and professed philosophy. This arrangement provided a temporary outlet to escape the imminent housing problems that had gripped the military regime.

After the fall of the Derg, the new economic policy adopted during the transition period and the subsequent laws issued began to support and promote private ownership. However, it was made categorically clear that the government would not return nationalized houses to their former owners or introduce any change on properties nationalized in accordance with Proclamation No 47 of 1975.

After the incumbent came to power, a directive aimed at terminating contractual relations created under sublease agreements of government owned houses was introduced. This created serious havoc among residents.

It has been a while for cadres of the ruling party, its government officials, and policy documents to begin to describe a section of society as rent seekers, a term with derogatory meaning to persons earning their living through leasing property. Rent is not unearned income obtained as a windfall gain or through illegal transaction.  

Leasing is a lawful act that emanates from property rights. The draft anti-terrorism proclamation nevertheless transformed leasing as a potentially suspicious act that should be placed under police surveillance. An obligation to report the agreement, the place, room, house, vehicle and "similar facilities" has been imposed supposedly to control terrorist acts and to ensure public security.

Undoubtedly, this legal requirement is not designed to provide greater protection to property owners or to ensure efficient enforcement of lease contracts and the respective rights or duties of parties. This is simply because the law provides rather onerous, time consuming, wasteful and inhibitive requirements that stifle lease business and meddle in the privacy of parties. Property owners know pretty well how best to safeguard and protect their wealth, the interest of their customers, and ensure and maximize their benefit.

Since national peace and stability are the necessary prerequisite for any business activity, including lease of properties, no one gains from disorder or instability.

It is therefore bizarre to assume that a lease contract is a breeding ground for terrorist acts. Very disappointingly, failure to discharge the reporting requirement under the bill is punishable with prison terms ranging from three to 10 years.

One may wonder why such a sweeping legal measure is necessary at this time when peace has prevailed in virtually all parts of the country and the threat of terrorist acts are not apparent. In fact, I share the views of most Ethiopians that our society is not hospitable to local or foreign suspects of any criminal act. There has always been the traditional of "informing" of appropriate government bodies, strangers referred to in customary parlance as "tsegurelewet," that always contribute for the prevention of crimes at the earliest possible time.

It appears that implicit in the new legal requirement is the fear that might take place in any discussion on public gatherings and the need to control such acts ahead of time. Paradoxically, gathering is a way of life for Ethiopian society, past and present. It is a normal phenomenon in all social and religious practices: Eddir, Equib, family elders meetings, celebrations of favorite saints, weddings, mourning, and worship necessitate gathering.

Social gathering for such events may be conducted in private residential quarters, churches and mosques, hotel rooms and halls, offices, markets, open air places, parks, vehicles and many other places. Of course, any public gathering may be a potential threat to peace and security.

Existing laws require prior information or request and of course prior notification for all political meetings though apparently, there has been no such requirement for many other gatherings. I believe the bill indirectly attempts to regulate gatherings at the discomfort and expense of leases. Let me hope that my beloved country is not becoming a police state, desperately working to seek lame pretext to ban and even accuse any gatherings, curtail leasing of properties and possibly prosecute this and other similar articles published in the media in the future, to be interpreted or misinterpreted as "rendering support to terrorism" or "encouragement of terrorism".