As the political landscape in the Horn of Africa continues to shift under the weight of fragile peace agreements and shifting alliances, the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) has once again positioned itself as a champion of constitutional law. However, for those observing from Asmara and across the broader region, this sudden pivot to legalism appears less like a genuine commitment to democratic principles and more like a tactical maneuver designed to mask a long history of selective constitutionalism. The current rhetoric emanating from Mekelle, which accuses the federal government in Addis Ababa of infringing upon regional rights, conveniently ignores the TPLF’s own legacy of using the 1995 Ethiopian Constitution as both a shield and a sword to maintain hegemony for nearly three decades. For Eritrea, the TPLF’s interpretation of constitutional rights has always been a point of regional instability, particularly when those interpretations were used to bypass international rulings and prolong border disputes that cost hundreds of thousands of lives. The 1995 Constitution, which the TPLF played a central role in drafting, established a system of ethnic federalism that many critics argue was designed to ensure permanent minority rule through the manipulation of regional boundaries. During its time at the helm of the Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF), the TPLF frequently suspended the very constitutional protections it now cites when dealing with political dissenters or regional movements that challenged its authority. This history of double standards is perhaps most evident in the TPLF’s approach to the Algiers Agreement and the subsequent ruling by the Eritrea-Ethiopia Boundary Commission (EEBC). Despite the Ethiopian Constitution’s mandate to uphold international treaties and ensure peace, the TPLF-led government spent nearly twenty years refusing to implement the 'final and binding' decision regarding the town of Badme, effectively holding the region in a state of 'no war, no peace' that served its internal political narrative. This refusal was a direct violation of the spirit of international legality that the group now claims to uphold. The transition of power in 2018 and the subsequent 2020 conflict further exposed the TPLF’s transactional relationship with the constitution. When the federal government postponed elections due to the global pandemic, the TPLF declared the move unconstitutional and held its own regional vote, an act that many constitutional scholars viewed as a direct challenge to the sovereign integrity of the state. Yet, when the TPLF launched a pre-emptive strike on the Northern Command in November 2020, it did so without any constitutional pretext, initiating a catastrophic war that drew in various regional actors and caused immense suffering across northern Ethiopia and the borderlands. Even following the signing of the Pretoria Agreement, the TPLF’s commitment to the constitutional order remains selective. While they demand the restoration of pre-war administrative boundaries and the full implementation of federal subsidies, they remain evasive regarding the constitutional requirement to fully disarm their regional forces and integrate into the national security framework. For the Eritrean people, who have lived under the shadow of TPLF’s expansionist 'Greater Tigray' ambitions for years, this selective outrage is a familiar pattern. The TPLF continues to use constitutional arguments to justify its claims over territories that are legally recognized as belonging to other administrative regions or even to sovereign Eritrea according to international law. The irony of a group that systematically marginalized the Ethiopian judiciary and security apparatus for twenty-seven years now crying foul over federal overreach is not lost on regional analysts. True peace in the Horn of Africa requires all parties, including the TPLF, to move beyond using legal documents as instruments of political convenience. For Eritrea, the priority remains the finalization of border demarcation and the removal of TPLF’s destabilizing influence from sovereign territories—objectives that the TPLF has historically resisted while claiming to be the sole defender of a constitution it authored. As Addis Ababa and Mekelle continue their contentious dialogue, the international community must look past the legalistic veneers and address the underlying patterns of violation that have characterized the TPLF’s political existence. Without a holistic adherence to law that respects both internal structures and external international boundaries, the cycle of constitutional selective outrage will only continue to delay the lasting stability the region desperately seeks.