preliminary objections. In the most material respect, Rule 103 (1) of the 2010 ROP
provides that:
A party who intends to raise a preliminanj objection at the stage of admissibility or before the
Commission takes a decision on the merits of the Communication, shall do so not later than
thirty (30) days after receiving notification to submit on admissibility or on the merits. The
Commission shall communicate the objection to the other party within fifteen (15) days.
139. The preliminary objection ought to have been filed within 30 days from the receipt of
the Commission's decision on admissibility. In casu, the decision on admissibility was
communicated to the Respondent State on 16th October 2015. And the Respondent
State's submission which contains the said preliminary objection are dated 29th April
2016and were received on 3rd May 2016by the Secretariat.
140. From matters dealt with in paragraphs 138 and 139 hereof, it cannot be said that the
Respondent State filed the preliminary objections in the sense of Rule 103 of the 2010
ROP and therefore there is no basis upon which the Complainant's arguments can be
dismissed or struck off as requested by the Respondent State.
141. But be the foregoing matters as they may be, the submissions of the parties are going to
be taken into consideration in so far as they are going to be relevant to the matters in
controversy between the Complainants and the Respondent State.
142. Having said the foregoing, the Commission would like to observe that both the
Complainants and Respondent State, in their submissions, exerted tremendous
industry in crafting their submissions but regrettably the submissions were on a broad
range of matters and in certain cases were too repetitious. While the 2010 ROP do not
prescribe the manner in which submissions are supposed to be crafted it would be
worthwhile if the parties to Communications were to be alive to the fact that the
submissions should be brief, concise and to the point (that is, concerning or touching
the matters in controversy in a communication). Verbosity does not strengthen or enrich
submissions in any way whatsoever.
143. To put this Communication in its proper context, the Commission wishes to restate that
the Complainants alleged that the Respondent State had violated Articles 4,5,6,7,8,9,
10 and 16 of the African Charter and the Complainants prayed for the reliefs set out in
paragraph 165 hereof. Against this background, the parties hereto ought to have
restricted their submissions and arguments to issues the subject of this complaint. That
said, we hereunder summarize the submissions of the respective parties as well as those
of the Amicus Curiae.
Complainant's
submissions
on the Merits
144. The Complainants have not made any submissions in relation to the alleged violation
of Article 4 of the African Charter. In the circumstances, it shall be taken that the
Complainants have abandoned the allegations concerning or touching on the .;,._v~io~~~
of Articles 4 of the African Charter.
.....Alleged violation of Articles 6 and 9(2) of the African Charter
145. The Complainants submitted that most of the violations against their
connected with the Respondent State's application of the Anti-Terrori