African Human Rights Organizations Look to Court to Save SADC Tribunal
Following a recent decision to eliminate its ability to adjudicate human rights cases, the survival of southern Africa’s most important regional court could rest in the hands of Africa’s highest human rights court. Freedom House supports the efforts of Southern African civil society organizations to challenge the legality of the suspension of the Southern African Development Community (SADC) Tribunal at the African Commission on Human and People's Rights. A positive opinion from the Court would send a strong signal to southern Africa's leaders and increase the chances for citizens in the region to once again be able to access an impartial supranational court with a human rights purview.
On November 23rd, the Southern Africa Litigation Centre (SALC) and the Pan African Lawyers Union (PALU) submitted an official a request for the African Court on Human and People’s Rights to review the legality of the decision by SADC Heads of State to limit the mandate of the SADC Tribunal to solely intra-state matters, preventing citizens of SADC countries from using the Tribunal to hold governments accountable for human rights violations. The organizations argue that the decision violates key provisions prescribed within the African Charter, the SADC Treaty and the SADC Tribunal Protocol that guarantee judicial independence, access to justice, the right to effective remedies and the rule of law. The fate of the SADC Tribunal has been in question since its initial suspension in 2010. Despite intense lobbying by civil society organizations to strengthen the court and a review process generally supported by Ministers of Justice and Attorney's General from the region, SADC's leaders instead chose to secure their own power by removing a court that could potentially have held them to account for corruption, human rights abuses and excessive use of executive authority.
African countries are required to coordinate their policies and programs with those of the African Union. As a result, a positive ruling by the African Court would greatly increase pressure on the region’s leaders to revive the Tribunal’s human rights mandate. This request remains one of few remaining avenues for proponents of the Tribunal to save the court and has been backed by international and regional civil societies organizations. During its brief existence, the SADC Tribunal had acted with impartiality and integrity to pass a number of progressive judgments upholding the rights of SADC citizens, most notably in Zimbabwe where a series of cases found against ZANU-PF and its land redistribution policy. Legal advocates point to the suspension of the Tribunal as emblematic of the deteriorating state of the rule of law throughout the region.
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