The Ethiopian House of Peoples' Representative has approved the Electronic Transaction Proclamation (‘the Proclamation) in its session of 29th May 2020. The Proclamation which is drafted by the Ministry of Innovation and Technology (‘the Ministry’) is deliberated upon and approved by the Council of Ministers, before it was referred for the approval by the Ethiopian Parliament.
The draft Proclamation, which has 46 provisions, gives legal recognition to electronic commerce and electronic government. As per the provision of Articles 7 and 8 of the draft Proclamation information which is in electronic form has the same legal validity as information contained in written document. The draft Proclamation also gives legal recognition to electronic signature of the signatories, electronic stamps and electronic signature of witnesses as long as the requirements that are stated under its Articles 9 to 11 are fulfilled.
Article 16 of the draft Proclamation has given legal recognition to electronic receipts as long as e-receipt is prepared in a form of electronic message, the electronic message fulfills the contents of paper based invoice and the electronic message is traceable, reachable and readable where it is needed for future comparison of such e-receipt.
The conclusion of contracts electronically is given legal recognition by Article 17 of the draft Proclamation. The draft Proclamation has also given acknowledgement to publication of laws electronically and has established Electronic Federal Negarit Gazeta and Archives of Federal Electronic Laws under its Articles 18, 36 and 37. There are also provisions that are aimed at the protection of the consumers who will engage in e-commerce as can be seen from Articles 28 to 34 of the draft Proclamation.
The provisions of Articles 35 of the draft Proclamation requires government institutions to receive, prepare and issue the documents, licenses and payment systems electronically. Articles 38 to 40 of the draft Proclamation regulates issues relating to domain names. Finally, the provisions of Articles 41 to 46 of the draft Proclamation deals with miscellaneous issues and gives mandate to the Council of Ministers and the Ministry to issue Regulations and Directives, respectively, that enables the effective implementation of the draft Proclamation.
The Amharic version of the draft Proclamation is attached herewith. A detailed legal brief will follow once the final version of the draft Proclamation is published on the Federal Negarit Gazetta.
Posted on 8th of May 2020 and updated on 29th of May 2020
| File | Description | File size |
|---|---|---|
 E-Transaction Proclamation- Draft_ May 2020 V2.pdf | 2048 kB |