Fetha Nagast - Later History

Later History

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.

This Ge'ez edition, ascribed to Petros Abda Sayd, is a loose translation of Ibn al-'Assal's original, and even diverges significantly in a few places where Petros evidently had some difficulty with the Arabic. Scholars have stated that the first section (the Ecclesiastical law) was already in use in Ethiopia before this time as part of the Senodos, and that the title Fetha Negest, Laws of the Kings, referred to the second (lay) part, that was new to Ethiopia.

The Fetha Negest remained officially the supreme law in Ethiopia until 1931, when a modern-style 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.