Delegates attending a regional forum on the promotion of courts have agreed to strengthen their partnership to make the African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights achieve its set goals.They made the declaration at the end of a three-day sensitisation seminar on the promotion of the Court for the Eastern and Northern region of the African continent hosted in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.The commitment was announced in a statement released after the meeting.The event was organised to raise awareness about the court in all its dimensions to a wide range of partners of the human rights system from the region and encourage more ratifications of the Protocol establishing the Court.During the meeting, the court and its key partners discussed ways of increasing its visibility throughout Africa as well as ways of helping it effectively achieve its mandate.It was noted that for more than six years of its operations, the court has been under-utilised in both its jurisdictions (eastern and northern); to date, it has only received 24 petitions relating to contentious matters and three requests for advisory opinion.“We want this court to be strengthened and utilized than it is now and people working in this human rights court in the regions concerned have committed themselves to do it,” said Gérard Niyungeko, President of the African Court of Human Rights.“If people don’t know how to access the court and how it operates, then the court will not positively impact the protection of human rights at the continental level,” Niyungeko said.So far, only 26 of the 54 AU member states have ratified the Protocol establishing the Court, and, in particular, out of these, only five have so far authorised individuals and NGOs to file cases directly with the African Court.Niyungeko urged states that have yet to ratify the protocol to consider do so and those which have ratified it to authorise individuals and NGOs to institute cases directly before it.Speaking to The New Times yesterday, Deogratias Kayumba, a commissioner at the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC), said Rwanda has ratified the protocol.“Mass mobilisation is really needed to ensure that people understand how the African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights operates and the procedures to follow in order to access its services,” Kayumba said.
