AFCHPR’s Senior Communications Officer, Sukhdev Chhatbar, said here on Friday that the north-central African nation deposited its instrument of ratification of the Protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights on the establishment of the African Court on Human and Peoples’ Right, bringing the number of African Union (AU) Member States to have ratified it to 30.
According to the official, the instrument was signed on 27 January, 2016 by Chad’s President Idriss Déby Itno and immediately deposited at the AU Headquarters in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.
“The ratification was promised by the Chad’s President when he met the President of the Court Hon Justice Augustino Ramadhani in N’djamena during a sensitization visit to the country on 16-17 December, 2015.”
The development came barely few days when the President of Chad assumed the AU annual rotating Chairmanship last week in Addis Ababa from President Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe.
The African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights is a continental court established by the AU to enhance the protection of human and peoples’ rights in Africa.
On the ratification of the Protocol, States have to make a Declaration required under Article 34(6) of the Protocol to allow individuals and NGOs to bring cases directly before the Court. Without such Declaration, the Court would have no jurisdiction over cases brought by individuals and NGOs.
So far, only seven states have made the Declaration.
These are: Burkina Faso, Côte d’Ivore, Ghana, Malawi, Mali, Rwanda and Tanzania.
The AU is made up of 54 Member States. Enditem
Source: Xinhua
