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The African Court of Human and Peoples’ Rights (AfCHPR) was established by the Protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights on the Establishment of an African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights (the Court Protocol) which entered into force in 2004. [1]
It is a regional court created to make judgments on African Union states' compliance with the African Charter on Human and Peoples' Rights. It came into being on January 25, 2004 with the ratification by fifteen member states of the Protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights Establishing the AfCHPR.[2] As of April 2014, just 27 of the African Union's 54 members have ratified and are parties to the Court. The AU discourages prosecution of human rights abuses in the International Criminal Court, hoping that they would be tried by the AfCHPR instead; but the AfCHPR has achieved very little.[3]
The Court is located in Arusha, Tanzania, at the Phase II of the Mwalimu Julius Nyerere Conservation Centre Complex along Dodoma Road
On January 22, 2006, the Eighth Ordinary Session of the Executive Council of the African Union elected the first eleven Judges of the African Court on Human and Peoples' Rights.
Judges are normally elected for six-year terms and can be re-elected once. The President and Vice-President are elected to two-year terms and can be re-elected once.
The Court had its First Ordinary Session from July 2–5, 2006 in Banjul, The Gambia.
Member states of the protocol establishing the Court, as well as the African Commission and African inter-governmental organisations, may bring before the Court applications against members states of the protocol.
Individuals and NGOs with observer status before the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights, however, can file applications only against members states accepting that specific option (as of 2013, Burkina Faso, Ghana, Malawi, Mali, Tanzania and Rwanda).[4]
On December 15, 2009, the Court delivered its first judgment, finding an application against Senegal inadmissible.[5]
The Court's first judgement on the merits of a case was issued on June 14, 2013, in a case involving Tanzania. It found Tanzania had violated its citizens’ rights to freely participate in government directly or through representatives regardless of their party affiliation, and ordered Tanzania to take constitutional, legislative, and all other measures necessary to remedy these violations. [6][7]
On March 28, 2014, the Court ruled against Burkina Faso, in a case brought by the family of Norbet Zongo, a newspaper editor who was murdered in 1998. The court found that Burkina Faso had failed to properly investigate the murder, and had failed in its obligations to protect journalists.[8][9]
On July 1, 2008, at the African Union Summit in Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt, Heads of State and Government signed a protocol[10] on the merger of the AfCHPR with the still non-existent African Court of Justice following a decision by member states at a June 2004 African Union Summit. As of 3 February 2014, only five countries have ratified the protocol out of 15 needed for its entry into force.[11] The new court will be known as the African Court of Justice and Human Rights.
Sudan, Southern African Development Community, Rwanda, Uganda, Seychelles
African Union, Politics, African Economic Community, Executive Council of the African Union, Pan-African Parliament
African Union, African Union Commission, Executive Council of the African Union, Pan-African Parliament, Politics
Nigeria, Chad, Pan-African Parliament, Rwanda, Egypt