ECOWAS court seeks regional human rights conference

THE President of West Africa’s Community Court, Honourable Justice Maria Do Céu Silva Monteiro, has called on the community and the ECOWAS Commission for the development of an instrument that will ensure the human rights of the 300 million citizens of West Africa.

  According to her, this instrument must be urgently developed and contained in the catalogue of rights of citizens of the region.   

  “This may take the form of a West African convention on human rights,” the President said while opening the 2014/2015 legal year of the court whose mandate includes the protection of the human rights of community citizens.

  The new ECOWAS Court President, who lamented the “low rate of the enforcement of the judgments of the court” which has implications for the credibility of the court, a situation that has been blamed on the absence in most member-states of local implementing authorities as required under Article 24 of the Court’s 2005 Supplementary Protocol, said: “Justice without enforcement is impotent and the use of force without justice is tyrannical… justice and enforcement must therefore go together and thus, ensure that whatever is just is made to become powerful and whatever is powerful is just.”

  She said that much are still needed to be done, especially in finalising the rules of arbitration of the court which have been formulated by the court but awaiting the concurrence of the region’s legal experts and the Council of Ministers.

  In his presentation, the guest speaker at the ceremony, Prof. Chidi Anselm Odinkalu, urged the court to explore the possibility of adopting five measures to improve on compliance with its decisions, including the establishment of a properly equipped unit in the court’s registry responsible for compliance and implementation of judgments.

  Odinkalu, who chairs the Governing Council of the National Human Rights Commission of Nigeria, also proposed the designation of a judge-rapporteur who will liaise with the registry and report to the Bench of the court while working with states to ensure compliance thereby helping to build a body of positive precedence that can become a source of peer pressure in favour of compliance.

  Earlier, the Court’s Chief Registrar, Mr. Tony Anene-Maidoh, said that the effectiveness and credibility of the court depended on the effectiveness of its enforcement machinery, noting that since its inaugural sitting on January 22, 2004, the court has had 532 sessions.  He also stated that since the inception of the court, 201 cases had been lodged before it.  A total of 183 decisions, comprising 82 rulings, 86 judgments, 12 review judgments and three advisory opinions had been delivered by the court and that currently, there are 56 pending cases.

  President of the ECOWAS Commission, His Excellency, Kadré Désiré Ouédraogo, praised the court as an important institution for the interpretation of community texts and defence of the human rights of the citizens.