Somaliland Intellectual Property Law - review and recommendations

New 2011  Laws: Somaliland Telecommunications Law...  Water Law ... NDC Law

Updated Pages: Somaliland Administrative Law... Somaliland Police Law...  Criminal Procedure Code .... Traffic Code ... Public Finance laws... Somaliland boundaries... Prisons Regulations

Presidents signs the Somaliland National Human Rights Commission Law (SLNHRC)

28/12/2010 President returns the Law on the Settlement of Salaries and Emoluments of the President, Vice-President and the Members of the Two Houses  (Law No. 46/2010) to the House  of Representatives.   UPDATE: The Law has since been signed by the President on 13 February 2011 - Copy of the final amended Law No. 46/2010.

• Hargeisa Legal Clinic 2010 Annual Report.  Updated pages: Public Safety Laws ...  Public Finance Laws ...
• Hope and Caution in Somaliland (09/12/2010) - Somaliland's government 'will need to be far more clear-sighted and long-term in its vision to obtain not just outside support but sustained momentum for democracy and development', write Steve Kibble and Michael Walls, in an assessment of the first few months of the new presidency.
• Updated pages:  Security Committees abolished ...  1971 Prison Law ... 1996 Direct Taxes Law  and the Stamp Duty Law  etc... New laws signed by President M A M Silanyo ...

Self-Determination and Conflict Resolution: From Kosovo to Sudan,  Speech by Louise Arbour, President and CEO of the International Crisis Group to the Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs, 22 September 2010: “In the case of Somaliland, insistence by the African Union on the increasingly abstract notion of the unity and territorial integrity of the Somali Republic, with Somalilanders governed again from Mogadishu, is both unrealistic and unsupported by more than twenty years of state practice. Any attempt to re-impose centralized control by Mogadishu would almost certainly open a new chapter in the Somali civil war.”

• Multi-party Democracy in the Horn of Africa: Somaliland 2010 Presidential Election (Outside link) ...  See also other reports about the election
• Updated Pages: Military Criminal Code 1963 ...  Electoral Laws/Codes .
• Non-Governmental Organisations Law (passed by the House of Representatives on 10 May 2010 and now approved by the House of Elders).
• National Budget Law (passed by the House on 10 May 2010, but returned by the President unsigned on 1 June 2010)

Electoral Laws updates May 2010 Second Amendments to the Presidential & Local Elections Law 2001 ... Somalilandlaw.com Text consolidation of the 2001 Election Law and all its amendments ...Codes of Conduct for the Political Parties ... Six point MOU ... First Supplement to the 2009 Electoral Laws Handbook (Supplement coming out soon) ..

• “Who do you Want to Dispense Justice - Committees or Courts of Law?”:  Somalilandlaw.com Editorial 21 March 2010. (Information about the continuing extra- judicial activities of the Somaliland Security Committees is also available at this link).
• Hargeisa Law Faculty Legal Clinic Quarterly Report 2010: Mohammed M Jama, Director, Human Rights Unit, 20/03/2010

A note on Mohamed Barud’s “The Mourning Tree - An Autobiography and A Prison Memoir” published on 20 February 2010

• Full English Language copies of the PENAL CODE 1962  (now available) and the CRIMINAL PROCEDURE  CODE 1963 (Available soon) - (courtesy of Tahlil H Ahmed, Senior Legal Adviser, UNDP ROLS Programme)
• Somaliland Veterinary Code (in Somali) (Also Somalilandlaw.com view about the controversy relating to the passage of the Law)

International Crisis Group Briefings: December 2009: Somaliland a Way out of the Elect0ral Crisis

May 2006: Somaliland - Time for an African Leadership

• UDDA Press Release on the Somaliland Security Committees’ extra-judicial activities - 29/12/2009 (in Somali)
• RECOMMENDED: Somaliland Independent Scholars’ Group (ISG) topical papers on the Somaliland delayed presidential election- available at the website of the Somaliland Social Research & Development Institute (SORADI) 
• UDDAA (and other Somaliland organisations, including somalilandlaw.com) issue a statement about the recent events relating to the long delayed 2009 Somaliland presidential election.
• Somaliland Presidential and Local Elections law (Amendment) Law 2009  (in Somali)
• Another unconstitutional term extension: Text (Somali) & explanatory note of the House of Elders’ Resolution on 13 March 2009 extending  the presidential term of office.
• Updated Pages:  Labour/Employment Law as amended ...    Electoral Laws page .....  Mining Laws ...
• SOMALILAND ELECTORAL LAWS Handbook (264 pages) in English & Somali by Ibrahim Hashi Jama, available for free downloading  from the  Electoral Laws page. 
• Updated Pages:  Local Gov’t Law 2007.... Voter Registration Law & Amendments (Also now in English)..... Electoral Commission
• The Somaliland Juvenile Justice Law (Law No: 36/2007)  has now come into force as from 21 April 2008: Somali text and an English language introduction.
• The  Organisation of the Judiciary Law (Law no 24/03 & 06): This Bill was initially passed by the House of Representatives in 2003 and again in 2006  and was returned again   by the President. The President’s amendments were finally passed by the House, on 16 March 2008,  which could not muster the two thirds majority it required to push through the bill unscathed.  The Bill is now in force.
• House of Elders Resolution on 10/04/2008 extending the Presidential term by one year. 
• Somaliland Voter Registration Law (Law No: 37/2007):  Somali text of the final law passed in July 2007 and, now, as updated in 2008.
• Jamhuuriya Interview with Somalilandlaw.com editor before the Guurti - Term extension decision - “Nabad xumid aan dalka ka jirini ma keeneyso Muddo kordhin distoori ah, laakin Muddo kordhin aan distoori aheyn ayaa nabad xumi dalka u keeneysa” -“Disorder that does not exist in the country will not bring about a constitutional term extension, but an unconstitutional term extension may lead to disorder”.
• Somaliland Local Government Re-organisation through Presidential Decrees in an Election Year - An article (large pdf file) : 06/04/2008
• Somaliland Cross-Party Parliamentary Group:  Formation (November 2007), Press Releases and visit to UK (February 2008)
• New or Updated Pages: Electoral Commission .... Electoral Laws .... Environmental Laws ... Mining Laws
• Courts of Law re-established in Las Anod, the Sool regional centre  31/12/2007
• Somaliland National Human Rights Commission Bill submitted to the House by the Gov’t in November 2007:   Text in Somali. ALSO:     Jamhuuriya (Online) interview setting out Somalilandlaw.com editor’s comments on this Bill: 06/01/2007  (in Somali)
• The new Somaliland Press & Publications Bill 2007: Text & comments (Somaliland.com urges the Representatives to reject this Bill completely and recommends instead the adoption of eight steps to strengthen press independence) - Somalilandlaw.com Editorial on this Bill: 07/01/2008
• Protests about Somaliland Government’s “take-over” of the Somaliland Human Rights Network - SHURO-Net
• Notes of APD forum  on the Somaliland Constitution: facilitated by Mr Michael Walls in August 2007
• The Delayed Release of the three QARAN Leaders: An article exploring Somaliland law relating to presidential powers of “pardon & amnesty” 23/09/2007  (Update: The politicians were released on 18/12/2007)
• Election Law Amendments 2007 Commentary Somalilandlaw.com Comments on the Somaliland Presidential & Local Councils Elections (Amendment) Bill 2007. (Update: This Bill was rejected by the House of Elders and has now lapsed).
• Politicians Arrested: The imprisonment of  the three leaders of a new Somaliland political association, QARAN, on 28 July 2007 has led to wide spread condemnation - see for example the Press Releases from:   SHURO-NET              Somaliland Forum
• Somaliland Presidential & Local Councils Elections (Amendment) Bill 2007- Text in Somali .
• Somaliland Lawyers Association (SOLLA) Call for the abolition of the extra-judicial powers of the Somaliland Security Committees: Communique 07/06/2007
• Shuro-Net Statement on the legal challenge of the extra-judicial powers of the Security Committees (23/05/07)
• Somaliland Media Law: A Concept Paper by Associate Dean, Adam Haji Ali Ahmed, of HARGEISA UNIVERSITY LAW FACULTY.
• Launch of the Somaliland Freedom of Expression Fund (Art.32 Fund)
• Campaign to abolish the extra-judicial activities of Somaliland Security Committees
• The Sheikh Concordat – Settling Constitutional Disputes in the Somaliland Way?- Article by Ibrahim Hashi Jama written in December 2006 and published in the Somaliland Focus Bulletin (www.somalilandfocus.org.uk)