African Court of Justice

Established	2003
Country	Arusha, Tanzania
Authorized by	Court of Justice of the African Union
Jurisdiction	the Court
Website	http://www.African-court.org

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The African Court of Justice was originally intended to be the "principal judicial organ of the Union" (Protocol of the Court of Justice of the African Union, Article 2.2) with authority to rule on disputes over interpretation of AU treaties.

A protocol to set up the Court of Justice was adopted in 2003, and entered into force in 2009. It was, however, superseded by a protocol creating the African Court of Justice and Human Rights, which will incorporate the already established African Court on Human and Peoples' Rights and have two chambers — one for general legal matters and one for rulings on the human rights treaties.

The merger protocol was adopted in 2008. The united court will be based in Arusha, Tanzania.

Arusha is a city in northern Tanzania and the capital of the Arusha Region. Since 1994, the city has hosted the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda.

According to the protocol and the Rules, the court may receive complaints or applications submitted to it either by the African Commission of Human and Peoples’ Rights or State parties to the Protocol of African Intergovernmental Organization.

Judges

Judges	Year	Term
Justice AugustinoS.L. Ramadhani (president)	2010	6
Justice Elsie Nwanwuri Thompson (Vice President)	2010	6
Justice Gerard Niyungeko	2006	6
Justice Fatsah Ouguergouz	2006	4
Justice Duncan Tambala	2010	6
Justice Sylvain Ore	2010	4

The Court is composed of eleven judges, nationals of Member States of the African Union. The first Judges of Court were elected in January 200, in Khartoum, Sudan. They were sworn in before the Assembly of Heads of State and Government of the African Union on 2 July 2006, in Banjul, the Gambia. The judges are elected for a six year or four year term renewable once. The judges elect a President and Vice-President of the Court among themselves who serves a two year term. They can be re-elected only once.

Access

Non-Governmental Organizations with observer status before the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights and individuals from States which have made a Declaration accepting the jurisdiction of the Court can also institute cases directly before the Court. As of October 2012, only five countries had made such a Declaration. Those countries are Burkina Faso, Ghana, Malawi, Mali, and Tanzania.

Operations

The Court officially started its operations in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia in November 2006, but in August 2007 it moved to its seat in Arusha, the United Republic of Tanzania, where the Government of the Republic has provided it with temporary premises pending the construction of a permanent structure. Between 2006 and 2008, the Court dealt with operational and administrative issues, including the development of the structure of the Court's Registry, preparation of its budget, and drafting of its Interim Rules of Procedure. In 2008, during the Court's Ninth Ordinary Session, judges of the Court provisionally adopted the Interim Rules of the Court pending consultation with the African Commission on Human and Peoples' Rights. In Banjul, the Gambia in order to put their rules together to achieve the purpose of the provisions of the Protocol establishing the Court, which requires that the two institutions must put together their respective Rules so to achieve the intended complementarities between the African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights and the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights.This harmonization process was completed in April 2010 and in June 2010, the Court adopted its final Rules of Court.

See also

• Supreme Court of Georgia (U.S. state)
• African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights
• Supreme Court of Appeal of South Africa
• East African Court of Justice

References

http://www.inkundlajournal.org/inkundla/2013-inkundla-2

• The African Court of Justice and Human Rights