I am working as an attorney for the ECC (Eglise du Christ au Congo) on election-related issues.
The ECC is a very large entity in DRC. It is the umbrella organization of which all Protestant churches must be members. This is a government mandated thing that’s been around for over 30 years, and was the product of Mobutu’s method of rule. Whatever its origins, the ECC operates today as a gigantic entity. DRC has 70-85 million people (an actual census is not logistically/financially possible, that’s why I give the range) and 40 % of them identify as protestant.
One of the very interesting things about the Congolese constitution (from 2006) is that it requires that several governmental institutions be “accompanied” by various parts of civil society, including the ECC. Thus, for example, when the former head of the national electoral commission stepped down a few months ago, the ECC was consulted on who should replace him—because it’s constitutionally mandated that they be consulted.
Therefore, I will be doing work in the context of the ECC accompanying these various governmental entities (the national electoral commission, the national human rights commission, etc…) in their duties, so far as they relate to the elections. On a practical basis, this means that I need to know the laws governing those entities, and be able to apply them to decisions (or indecisions) taken by those institutions. I’ll write reports on that situation and the law, send it to my boss within the ECC, who will eventually add his edits and his thoughts and probably lots of other stuff that I don’t know because I’m new here, and send it on to the relevant governmental entity.
It’s important to note that the constitution doesn’t require every governmental institution to be accompanied by civil society. Thus, I’ll be doing the same kind of monitoring-like stuff for a few other governmental entities, but the relationship is a bit different.
What I just wrote above is the theory of what I’m going to do. But I have a hunch that it’s going to play out differently.
Last Friday I got to meet with two other ECC employees who are going to be helping me with this process. They suggested that the first thing we should do is to meet the different organizations that are already doing this kind of human rights/monitoring work, so that we can coordinate with them (which is a brilliant idea). They also said we should try to get a feel for what is going on in the provinces with these things. So they wrote an email to ECC office leaders in each of the provinces, and asked them to prepare a report on the situation of human rights in their region. This is very cool, but is already outside of what I was thinking I’d be doing, because it just feels so big and kind of administrative.
Anyway, we’ll see what happens. I’m very happy to be here working with the ECC. My coworkers are competent, diligent, and gracious followers of Christ, and I feel privileged to play a small part in trying to bring about the great vision they have for their country.
Karen's Note:
The ECC national office is, of course, in Kinshasa, and Mark has been spending a lot of time there as he's getting the specific of his job description worked out. We hope that once he's in the groove, he'll be able to stay in Bukavu most of the time.
The ECC is a very large entity in DRC. It is the umbrella organization of which all Protestant churches must be members. This is a government mandated thing that’s been around for over 30 years, and was the product of Mobutu’s method of rule. Whatever its origins, the ECC operates today as a gigantic entity. DRC has 70-85 million people (an actual census is not logistically/financially possible, that’s why I give the range) and 40 % of them identify as protestant.
One of the very interesting things about the Congolese constitution (from 2006) is that it requires that several governmental institutions be “accompanied” by various parts of civil society, including the ECC. Thus, for example, when the former head of the national electoral commission stepped down a few months ago, the ECC was consulted on who should replace him—because it’s constitutionally mandated that they be consulted.
Therefore, I will be doing work in the context of the ECC accompanying these various governmental entities (the national electoral commission, the national human rights commission, etc…) in their duties, so far as they relate to the elections. On a practical basis, this means that I need to know the laws governing those entities, and be able to apply them to decisions (or indecisions) taken by those institutions. I’ll write reports on that situation and the law, send it to my boss within the ECC, who will eventually add his edits and his thoughts and probably lots of other stuff that I don’t know because I’m new here, and send it on to the relevant governmental entity.
It’s important to note that the constitution doesn’t require every governmental institution to be accompanied by civil society. Thus, I’ll be doing the same kind of monitoring-like stuff for a few other governmental entities, but the relationship is a bit different.
What I just wrote above is the theory of what I’m going to do. But I have a hunch that it’s going to play out differently.
Last Friday I got to meet with two other ECC employees who are going to be helping me with this process. They suggested that the first thing we should do is to meet the different organizations that are already doing this kind of human rights/monitoring work, so that we can coordinate with them (which is a brilliant idea). They also said we should try to get a feel for what is going on in the provinces with these things. So they wrote an email to ECC office leaders in each of the provinces, and asked them to prepare a report on the situation of human rights in their region. This is very cool, but is already outside of what I was thinking I’d be doing, because it just feels so big and kind of administrative.
Anyway, we’ll see what happens. I’m very happy to be here working with the ECC. My coworkers are competent, diligent, and gracious followers of Christ, and I feel privileged to play a small part in trying to bring about the great vision they have for their country.
Karen's Note:
The ECC national office is, of course, in Kinshasa, and Mark has been spending a lot of time there as he's getting the specific of his job description worked out. We hope that once he's in the groove, he'll be able to stay in Bukavu most of the time.
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