Title: Zambian constitutional amendment process

Authors: Antonios Maniatis

Addresses: School of Law, University of Nicosia, Dimosthenous Street 5, Kalamata 24131, Greece

Abstract: The Republic of Zambia has some similarities to the Republic of Cyprus, as proved by the fact that it became an independent state from scratch in form of (presidential) republic, on the basis of a constitution which was granted by the UK. The 1991 Constitution ratified the new era of democracy (neo-constitutionalism) after the one-party form of governance and was widely amended in 1996. Some changes were put into force in January 2016 whilst complementary ones were blocked because of the failure of the 2016 Constitutional Referendum. Besides, the 2019 Constitutional Amendment needs no referendum to pass but has raised severe criticism. Anyway, both the form of the amendment process and the structure of the constitution are complicated.

Keywords: African constitutionalism; Cyprus; constitutional amendment; convention of the constitution; neo-constitutionalism; people-driven constitution; referendum; turn-out quorum Zambia; 2019 constitutional amendment process; Zambia.

DOI: 10.1504/IJHRCS.2020.108015

International Journal of Human Rights and Constitutional Studies, 2020 Vol.7 No.2, pp.158 - 169

Received: 26 Nov 2019
Accepted: 15 Feb 2020
Published online: 01 Jul 2020 *

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