BIRTH and CHILDHOOD LIFE
Tiumelissan Lema was born on June 19 1939 [GC] in the then Tigray Province, now Tigray Regional State of Ethiopia, in the Agamie area, near the Hawzen ancient town at a place known as Mariam Suta from his father Aleka Lema redahegn and his mother, Woizero Etay Araaya. He was the third child in the family. He grew happily until he was three years old. Unfortunately, his mother died soon after he attained three years of age.
His father married another wife. But the new wife did not satisfy his wishes and in particular was not good for Tiumelissan. So, he had to divorce his second wife in a few years time.
When Tiumelissan became seven years old, his father decided to take him to the then Begiemedir province [now the North Gondar and South Gondar zones which form parts of the Amhara Regional State]. He first took him to parts of South Gondar Zone so that he could be taught various church related subjects. Not after long he lost his sight due to an unknown eye disease. This did not bar him from continuing his studies as soon as he recovered from the pain of his illness which was not for long. He became a bright student and was appreciated by his teachers. Within five years he was able to accomplish all the required basic studies and at the age of twelve he was able to achieve one of the highly important subjects known as “kinie” which is applicable both for religious and secular purposes. By this time, he had moved to Wogera in the present North Gondar. He was then accompanied by his older brother who had come to join him while his father went around visiting monasteries and in the course of time became a monk himself.
During his stay in Amba Giorgis where he was advancing in his “kinie” education, he heard a rumor of the coming of the then Emperor Hailesellasie I to Gondar for visiting the city. Hence, wishing to be bestowed some gift of money or clothing, went to Gondar with his brother. When they got there and were trying to come nearer, the Emperor noticed Tiumelissan and gave an order to one of his body guards to bring the boy. The two brothers were brought to the Emperor and bowed to the Emperor showing their respect. The Emperor asked the young boy what he was studying and the boy replied that he had studied “kinie”. His majesty asked the boy to recite “asere nigus” of a rather long piece of “kinie” which refers to the Emperor or mentions his name. He did recite the part of the “kinie” correctly and quickly. The Emperor was pleased and promised to take the boy to Addis Ababa so that he could be taught there. Then he gave the two brothers a large piece of cloth to be used for clothing. Following this, he gave an order to the concerned official to send the two brothers by plane to Addis Ababa. This was done within a short time. For the time, they were to stay in the Imperial Palace until an arrangement was made for the education of Tiumelissan who was extremely happy believing that he was going to an Orthodox Church school to further his “kinie” and other important church teachings.
However, as the Emperor had planned to open a special school for the Blind to enable them to study western style education, an arrangement was made with the Entoto Swedish Mission School which taught blind boys Braille and a number of subjects side by side sighted students to accept Tiumelissan and other three or four boys brought to Addis by the order of the Emperor.
Under the arrangement the Imperial office agreed to pay the necessary tuition fee and provided certain materials to satisfy needs of the boys entrusted by the Imperial Office.
When he discovered that he joined a non-orthodox church institution and the students that joined the school earlier told him that it was an anti St Mary School to find out his reaction. Of course, he was terribly dismayed and did not want to stay there. So when his brother from the imperial palace where he was staying, came to visit him, he disclosed the matter to him. His brother agreed to take him out and go somewhere. As they tried to slip out of the school compound, the guard on duty got suspicious and stopped them and informed Ato [Mr.] Seyoum Woldemariam, a blind Braille teacher [one of the very few Braille instructors in Ethiopia at the time and was assigned to stay with the blind boys entrusted by the Emperor for studying there under the arrangement.
Western Style Education and Achievements Scored
Tiumelissan stayed there for one and a half years during which, he came second after studying for only about four and a half months of the academic year, while he stood first in his second academic year. He received financial awards in both cases from the Emperor. Birr 30 and the first year and Birr 50 in his second.
Just one day before the opening of the special school for the blind, Tiumelissan and the other boys with were taken to the new school in the Urael area[unofficially known as Casainchis] together with their Braille instructor. The following day, July 23, 1952 the school was inaugurated by the Emperor in the presence of the members of the royal family and dignitaries of all ranks The Emperor named the school Meriha Iwran School for the Blind and started operation the next day with twenty-seven boys who were present at the opening. The boys were classified into four classes and tiumelissan was placed in class 4 together with two of the boys that came from Entoto Swedish Mission School and another boy from a different background.
After intensive teaching for about five and a half months, the final examination for the first term was given and based on the results reshuffling of students took place. Tiumelissan and three off his classmates were promoted to class 5which became grade 5 in mid-January of 1953.
It is said that the school was intended to accommodate forty boys and by the end of the first term the number had reached thirty-seven. But, at the outset, shortage of space had proved to be a serious problem This shown by the fact that grade 1 was located in an open space facing the dining hall just in from of a bedroom; grade 2 was set on one side of the meeting hall while grade 5 was located in the corridor of the eastern wing of the building. This had a negative impact on the progress of the teaching system. On account of this reason, no new grade was opened until September 28 1955. In the meantime, reshuffling of students took place in the existing grades from time to time resulting in some change in the composition of the grades.
The introduction of double-deck beds and using the corridor as a bedroom made it possible to open grade 6 at the beginning of the 1955/1956 academic year. Thus, Tiumelissan and his class mates were promoted to grade 6. But, at the end of the academic year the same problem popped again. And so Tiumelissan and his classmates could not be promoted to grade 7. Consequently, the administrative and teaching staff of the school during a meeting decided that Tiumelissan and his class mates should be assigned to teach from grade 1 to 3 as practicing teachers for one academic year and then could be sent to teach in lower grades in elementary schools. Accordingly, this was done in 1956/1957 academic year. In addition, they were given certain courses to consolidate their position and were taught typing applying the ordinary type writer to serve them during their teaching tenure for preparing teaching materials and questions.
At the end of the academic year the school administrative and teaching staff during discussion of issues, it is said that one member suggested that grade 6 students instead of being sent for teaching assignment should go to one of the regular schools nearby as day students and continue to live in the School for the Blind. This was agreed upon and discussion was held with the director of Asfawossen Elementary School [now Misrak Goh]. An agreement was reached; and so Tiumelissan and his classmates, seven boys joined grade seven of Asfawossen School.
About a month later, the director an Indian by the name of Mr. Rao announced that he had decided to give a special examination to students in grades below grade 8 because the lower grades were crowded while the number of students in grade 8 was small.
Accordingly, the exam was given and about thirty grade 7 students managed to pass. Out of these, Tiumelissan was one of the five blind students that succeeded in passing the exam. Besides, he and the rest of grade 8 students successfully passed the exams given by the Ministry of Education in June on 1957.
At the start of the next academic year, AsfawossenSchool opened grade 9 paving the way for students to continue their high school education there. Tiumelissan and his friends were pleased at this. But when they went to join the school; they were told they could not. The reason given was that they could not do geometry and algebra which was a part of a compulsory subject/math. They returned with great disappointment to the School for the Blind and reported the matter to the authorities. The matter was referred to the Hailesellassie I Foundation which oversaw the running of the School for the Blind. Woizero [Mrs.] Tayech Beyenie, a social worker serving in the Foundation, handled the case discussing the issue with administrative authorities of the School for the Blind and those of the Asfawossen School. Finally, the latter accepted the offer made by the School for the Blind authorities proposing to import the required assistive mathematical set for the boys. They did so, in a reasonably short time. Accordingly, Tiumelissan and his class mates were able to join Asfawossen School just after midterm exams.
At the end of the academic year, Tiumelissan stood first in his class and received book awards from the Emperor. He was promoted to grade 10 with three of his blind class mates and did extremely well in his studies.
A number of his sighted class mates complained to the class master, claiming that blind students in their class were scoring good results because they were not required to draw diagrams during exams and as such, should be excluded from ranking. [blind students had to type out the process required to be demonstrated. E.G. if blood circulation should be shown by a diagram, blind students had to type out step by step the process of circulation from the beginning to the end. Of course, they got marks varying on the degree of accuracy of their respective answers.
In January of 1961, Tiumelissan and his classmates were transferred to Menelik II Secondary School after completing the first term of their academic year of their grade 11 education.
Under British school administration conditions were somewhat different. Anyway, Tiumelissan enjoyed his studies there. There was no longer exclusion from ranking and so he stood second and promoted to grade 12 the following academic year. Unexpectedly, Tiumelissan and his blind class mates found themselves in a serious trouble because the new Indian math teacher adamantly refused to give any oral explanation when writing on the blackboard any math problem claiming that he had not come to teach blind students and that he did not know how they studied math. Besides, the new teacher for literature from Britain refused to talk or pay attention to blind students and his negative attitude led to poor results for Tiumelissan and his blind class mates.
What is more, there was another hard blow to the success of Tiumelissan and his blind class mates. Up to grade 11, Mennonite Mission girls, particularly, two of them, at the School for the Blind, gave vital support to blind students by reading text books, dictating notes from borrowed exercise books, transcribing geometry figures into tactile diagrams and invigilating during exams. At the end of grade 11, the head of the School for the Blind who was also boss for the missionaries at the School, gave order to the Mission girls to stop assisting the blind students, except for invigilating during exams. This forced Tiumelissan and his friends, after completing the second term of the academic year, to drop most of the science subjects and geography to concentrate on six subjects: math, English and Amharic which were compulsory, history, English Literature and biology for their ESLCE. Failure in any one of these subjects would result in failing to join the University College of Addis Ababa soon to become Hailesellassie I University.
In June of 1962, Tiumelissan and his two blind friends were taken to one of the premises of the University College for the exams, the three boys who were used to typing their exams on the ordinary typewriter, were astonished to discover the exam questions were transcribed into Braille and they were to give their answers in Braille. Due to the small number of Braille writers available, they were used mostly by Braille teachers. So, the boys’ experience in Braille typing was not as might have been expected. Anyhow, they soon learnedthat the exam questions were earlier sent to England and transcribed into Braille there and dispatched to the University College and they were also told that their answers would be sent to London for translation into print and to be sent back to the College. This of course, took time. The boys got their results on October 17 1962. By this time, successful sighted class mates were completing their third week of studies. Fortunately, Tiumelissan and his two friends had scored results ensuring their admission to the University College. Tiumelissan, as he was good at and greatly loved teaching, joined the Education Faculty majoring in history and taking English as a minor. He scored high results and was able to stand first in his first and second year of education. After completing second year, an unexpected incident occurred. The University issued a regulation requiring University students to go for a year of national service before completing or graduating from the University under which most of the students had to go to different parts of the country and teach in different schools for an academic year. There was another blind student who had just completed his third year and was obliged under the regulation to go for national service. But, the Ministry of Education which was responsible for enforcing the regulation, refused to accept the blind student as a teacher on the ground that he was unable to write on the blackboard. So he was exempted from national service. This was a hard blow for Tiumelissan. He concluded that he would not be allowed to be a teacher. Accordingly, he changed faculty and joined the Law School of the University. The results he achieved in the Education Faculty won his the NO Littman scholarship award of Birr 150 monthly payment until he graduated from the Law School. Besides, he became a member of the Law School Editorial Board where he earned Birr 40 payment a month during his membership.
In the 1966/1967 academic year, the Attorney-General who was in charge of the Attorney-General’s Office which was under the Ministry of Justice, visited the Law School and announced that he was ready to accept all Law School students for national service. So Tiumelissan and his blind class mate were happy for the chance of joining the national service group. They completed their studies in June of 9967 and were ready to go for service. The Law School agreed to provide assistants for the two blinds students. Thus Tiumelissan began his national service on July 8 9967 with a high school student who had completed grade 11 and was in his summer break, expecting to join grade 12 the following academic year.
Sometime before the start of the new academic year, the Law School decided to look for another assistant to replace the student. But, when the Attorney-General became aware of this, he informed the Law School that he decided to assign an assistant for Tiumelissan and he did so as soon as the assisting student left.
His main task, during national service was examining police investigation files assigned to him by the Vice Attorney-General and present his legal opinions as to whether accused persons should be prosecuted or not setting out the grounds clearly for prosecution or rejecting prosecution. Where prosecution was to be recommended, deciding on the relevant penal law article or provision.
Tiumelissan completed his national service requirement on May 8 1968 and was employed by the Ministry of Justice the following day two months before graduation.
Working life and achievements
Tiumelissan served his country in different positions beginning as junior assistant attorney, then Vice assistant Attorney-General during the imperial era.
Following the takeover of power in 1974 by the Derg Regime Tiumelissan was appointed as assistant attorney-general in 1976 and in 1980 he was given the title of legal expert with the rank of vice attorney-general. At the time, he was considered by his superiors as one of the Attorney-General Office’s few principal pillars. He usually acted as the top advisor of the Attorney-General.
In 1987, on the establishment of the Procurator-General’s office separate from the ministry of Justice accountable to the State Council and the President, Tiumelissan was called upon to join the new office. He was appointed as one of the assistant attorney-generals of the Democratic Republic of Ethiopia and he was given the position of top assistant or advisor to the Procurator-General, here as well.
Beside his regular duties, he played an important role in the training of candidates recruited to become public prosecutors.
Following the EPRDF takeover of power in 1991, at the start of the transition period, when a new proclamation was issued providing for a central state and fourteen regional states, Tiumelissan was one of the legal experts that organized the new central attorney-General’s Office and was appointed as assistant attorney-general on its inauguration in early January of 1992. Here again, he was the top advisor of the Attorney-General. However, this did not last long as the Attorney-General’s Office was abolished in 1993 and its powers and duties taken over by the Ministry of Justice. What is more, Tiumelissan was retired before his retirement age for unknown reasons. It seems that the incoming regime was misinformed about Tiumelissan by someone who was an employee or official of the previous government who joined the current regime.
Within a couple of years, the EPRDF government must have realized that it had been given misleading information concerning Tiumelissan and assigned him to preside over the criminal law drafting committee established within the Law and Justice Institute. Under his chairmanship, the Committee successfully completed the drafting of the criminal code after intense conferring and consultation with concerned stakeholders
Next, Tiumelissan conducted a tour around the country introducing to the public and interested stakeholders giving explanation to clarify certain critical portions of the draft and giving answers to questions raised.
Finally, the draft criminal law was presented to the House of the Peoples’ Representatives and after deliberation was approved to become the new criminal law of the country in 1996 [EC] and proclaimed as the Criminal Code of 1997 [EC] for Ethiopia. This has been a landmark in the development of legal history in Ethiopia.
Family and Spiritual Life
Tiumelissan got married soon after graduation from the Law School and became the father of eight children. Besides, he fostered a nephew, the son of his older sister, and two nieces– daughters of his older brother who accompanied him from Gondar to Addis Ababa in 1951. They are now well to do members of society/one of them residing abroad, the others here in Ethiopia. What is more, he was always, ready to give whatever assistance relatives or any other person in need of his help and did a great deal in this regard. In addition, he did a lot to encourage students learning in nearby schools or residing in his vicinity, by giving lessons for different subjects in his spare time.
Following the completion of his criminal law drafting and related tasks, he applied for and got a license to become a practicing lawyer and started to do so. But before long, he discovered that it was not conducive for him under the existing circumstances. So, he returned his license to the concerned office. He then decided on concentrating on teaching law. He gave various courses in the then Unity College where he used to teach since it was opened as an Institute as a part time instructor in the extension program. He continued to teach for quite a long time.
Tiumelissan was highly sensitive to human rights violation which was widespread at the time. He tried to fight such violation where ever he could. For instance, when he discovered that an elderly woman who had a case in court was being denied justice because she had no legal support; he applied for the renewal of his lawyer’s license to fight for the right of that woman. He did so until the case received its final decision by the competent court of appeal.
In regard, his church life, Tiumelissan became a member of the Meserrete-Kristos Church [MK Church] which was established sometime in 1962/3 in Addis Ababa by Ethiopians and Mennonite missionaries and spread to many parts of the country. He joined the Church in 1979 [EC] or sometime in 1986/7 [GC].
He had changed his attitude about the Protestant Church much earlier. When he discovered that the Swedish Mission Church used the same Bible as the Orthodox Church. Since he was familiar with biblical verses or passages, starting from his Orthodox Church school days, his suspicion about the protestant Church gradually vanished. Finally, he decided to join the MK Church as stated above.
He served in his local branch of the MK Church in various positions, including as a church elder and providing pastoral and evangelical services until his death on December 16, 2021.