DOES A REVOLUTION BEGET ITS OWN LEGALITY


A revolution is a term used to describe the action of a New Order taking over an Order already in existence: it is when something new takes over the old. A country is said to have undergone a successful revolution when a new government takes over an old government. The revolution can either be violent and bloody or it can be peaceful. Kenya for instance underwent a peaceful in the year 2002 when a new regime NARC took over the old regime KANU which regime had been in existence since independence of Kenya from the British colonialists.

According to Hans Kelsen, a norm is validated by a higher norm which is in turn validated by another higher norm. This chain of validity stretches back to the grund norm. In law this basic norm is the constitution of the state. In his general theory of the law and the state, Kelsen states that, “it cannot be maintained that legally, men have to behave in conformity with a certain norm, if the total legal order of which that norm is an integral part has lost its efficacy. The principle of legitimacy is restricted by the principle of effectiveness.” It would appear that Kelsen meant that it is unrealistic and unreasonable to continue abiding to a law that no longer serves the purpose for which it was meant or even worse a law that has been passed by time and events. If a law is not effective then it cannot be said to be legitimate.

It can therefore be argued that when a successful revolution takes place, its new constitution becomes valid and the old constitution is either entrenched into the new constitution or is declared null and void. The Constitution therefore becomes legally viable and acts as the grund norm of the state.

This theory was expressly cited and applied following a coup in Pakistan (The State versus Dosso), Uganda (Uganda versus Commissioner of Prisons, Ex Parte Michael Matovu) and the Rhodesian unilateral declaration of Independence. The general decision in the above was that a Revolution: a victorious revolution is an internationally recognized legal method of changing a constitution. Laws which derive from the old order may remain valid under the New Order only because their validity has been vested in them by the New Constitution and it is only the contents of these norms that remain the same and not ,the reason for the validity.

 This decision has been well illustrated in the recent revolutions that have occurred all over the world namely, the Egypt Revolution, the Libyan Revolution and the Tunisian Revolution. The new norm therefore endows a revolutionary government legal authority. In essence a successful revolution begets its own legality.

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