| Rights court cries out for recognition | Send to a friend |
| Wednesday, 16 November 2011 22:44 |
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The Citizen Bureau Chief Arusha. The African Court on Human and People’s Rights says it is concerned by the low rate of ratification on the Protocol that established it by the African states. Only 26 African Union (AU) members, including Tanzania, have so far ratified the Protocol meaning that the jurisdiction of the Court covers less than half of the member states of the continental organisation. The President of the Court Justice Gerard Niyungeko said, when opening a sensitization and consultative seminar for national human rights institutions in Africa yesterday, that the situation does not augur well for the future of the legal body that was set up mainly to address human rights issues. He said although nearly all member states of the AU have ratified the African Charter on Human and People’s Rights of which the Court is the legal custodian, only a half of them have ratified the Protocol on the establishment of the Court. All the five partner states of the East African Community (EAC); Tanzania, Uganda, Kenya, Burundi and Rwanda, are among signatories of the Protocol in question, he told legal experts from various countries at an Arusha hotel. Others are South Africa, Algeria, Burkina Faso, Cote d’Ivoire, Comoros, Gabon, Gambia, Ghana, Libya, Lesotho, Mali, Malawi, Mozambique, Mauritania, Mauritius, Nigeria, Niger, Congo Brazzaville, Senegal, Togo and Tunisia. Justice Niyungeko said with nearly a half of the AU states yet to ratify the Protocol, individuals and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) have also been unable to refer cases of alleged human rights violations to the Court. “Of the 26 states that have ratified the Protocol, only five have so far allowed individuals and NGOs to have direct access to the Court”, he said, noting that Tanzania was the only East African state which has complied. Others are Malawi, Ghana, Mali and Burkina Faso. “This current state of affairs places Africa in a paradoxical situation where member states of the AU have established a Human Rights Court but have at the same time almost prevented individuals from having access to the Court,whereas by definition, human rights are the rights of individuals”, he pointed out. He added that many people in the continent were ignorant of the Court, including those in countries which have already ratified the Protocol and in those which have already made the declaration authorizing individuals and NGOs to submit cases directly to it. “The Court is not yet well known among African populations and by the various entities which are entitled to submit cases to it, both in terms of contentious matters and in advisory matters”, he further pointed out. Justice Niyungeko could not give statistics on the number of cases submitted to the Court so far since it went into operation in July 2006, first in Addis Ababa, the AU seat and later Arusha in late 2007, but explained that they were unsatisfactorily few in sharp contrast with the magnitude of human rights violations in the continent. “It can be realized that a dozen or so cases cannot be said to be truly representative of the number that could be submitted to the Court, if it were to be used to the optimum,” he said. Add this page to your favorite Social Bookmarking websites           |
