EACJ chief decries lack of permanent Judges

The East African Court of Justice President, Justice Harold Reginald Nsekela, has called on the region’s Council of Ministers to immediately recommend provision of permanent judges to the regional court if it’s to achieve its objectives.While launching EACJ-Sub Kigali registry, Justice Nsekela said that one of the challenges that the court is encountering is shortage of permanent judges in the Arusha based court saying that unless the Council of Ministers agree on immediate recommendation to provide judges the court will continue underperforming.He said lack of permanent judges has derailed the performance of the court and the integration process. “We must have permanent judges based in Arusha, we cannot continue working in such a manner,” Nsekela said. “The decision has to be made very soon otherwise we shall continue not to achieve our objectives.”The court currently has two permanent judges including the principal judge, Justice Johnston Busingye, and the president of the court.He said as the integration deepens the number of cases also increases which calls for fulltime judges.“Our work needs a lot of reading you cannot make a judge who is serving in the national judicial service to be flying to Arusha where by today he is in Kigali tomorrow is in Arusha.”However, though the court is in operation, it’s besieged by lack of awareness about the court by the regional citizens. The Permanent Secretary in the ministry of EAC, Amb William Kayonga, pledged support towards raising awareness.“The Ministry of EAC will work closely with the court to raise the awareness of the services that it provides,” he said.Who is eligible to file a case? Article 30 of the treaty for the establishment of the EAC stipulates that any person who is resident in a partner state is qualified to drag to court anybody, a member state or EAC body that does an action that is unlawful or infringes on the provisions of the treaty.Article 28 also specifies that a partner state which considers that another partner state or any organ or institution of the community has failed to fulfil an obligation under the treaty or has infringed a provision of the treaty, may refer the matter to the court for adjudication.The treaty also, under article 29, gives the Secretary General obligation to litigate any member state that fails to fulfil the obligation under the treaty or infringed a provision of the treaty.The decision to have permanent residence of judges in the regional court was taken in 2011 during a Heads of State summit in Bujumbura, Burundi.The decision was taken after it was noted that cases have been pending in both First Instances and Appellate Divisions because the judges spend more time dispensing justice in their own countries, while they gave little time attention to the region’s judicial body.

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EACJ chief decries lack of permanent Judges