Date: 30 October 2023
Time: 12:00 SAST

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Abstract:

The African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights was established in 1998 to reinforce the human rights protection umbrella existing under the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights which operated from 1987. As fully-fledged judicial organ, the Court was expected to complement and strengthen the Commission’s quasi-judicial guarantees through adjudication. For almost two decades since its inauguration, judicial complementarity between the Court and the Commission has however yielded modest results. In a decade of active complementarity, the Commission has seized the Court will three Applications, two of which have resulted in substantive decisions. Conversely, the Commission has received four Applications from the Court which the Court dismissed for lack of jurisdiction—absent the Declaration of recognition of jurisdiction by the Respondent States. Such poor achievements warrant an examination of the complementarity mechanism and how to address its shortfalls. In this seminar, Dr Adjolohoun will examine the main issues viz: the institutional tension and its adverse effect on complementarity; secondly, the existence or otherwise of mechanisms for successful complementarity including the docket of the Commission on alleged massive human rights violations; and finally, recent challenges to complementarity arising from institutional reforms within the African Union, and the State cooperation crisis facing the Court.