ABSTRACT
The rule of law necessitates the enactment and application of laws that proscribe and ultimately punish discrimination against various persons and communities, including minorities. Many transitional societies harbor marginalized ethnic, cultural or religious groups. In postcolonial Africa, attacks on minorities are often the root cause of the armed conflict or authoritarianism. Protection of minorities and fulfilment of the right to self-determination can be defined as prerequisites for a peaceful democratic establishment, but they can also be seen as an impediment to the same. The question, then, is whether concerns of minorities are a priority in other transitional contexts, where the cause of the conflict is not necessarily an ethnic conflict or ‘situation involving minorities’. Frustrations which may lead minorities to seek equal treatment with the rest of society are varied; that is, they can either be political or economic, and in some cases dominant communities can exist as minorities.
