execution is served in the jurisdiction of the Respondent State acts to deny the prisoner the protection of the African Commission on Human on Peoples' Rights in violation of Article 1 of the African Charter. That the Death Penalty is per se in Violation of Article 4 of the African Charter 40. The Complainants submit that a generous and purposive interpretation of Article 4 should find that the death penalty is inherently arbitrary and therefore per se a violation of the Charter. 41. The Complainants submit that national courts including in the South African case of S v. Mkwanyane &Anor4 , the Tanzanian case of The Republic v. Mbushuu &Anor5 and the House of Lord's case of Pepper v. Hart6 to demonstrate the use of the generous and purposive interpretation at the domestic level. 42. The Complainants also submitted that purposive interpretation applies under international pursuant to Article 31(1) × A treaty shall be interpreted in good faith in accordance with the ordinary meaning to be given to the terms of the treaty in their context and in the light of its object and purpose. of the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties (1969). In this regard, they refer to the case of Soering v. United Kingdom7 where the European Court of Human Rights held that all the provisions of the European Convention on Human Rights should be read harmoniously (specifically that Article 3 × No one shall be subjected to torture or to inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment of the ECHR should be construed in harmony with Article 2 × (1) Everyone's right to life shall be protected by law. No one shall be deprived of his life intentionally save in the execution of a sentence of a court following his conviction of a crime for which this penalty is provided by law. (2) Deprivation of life shall not be regarded as inflicted in contravention of this Article when it results from the use of force which is no more than absolutely necessary: (a) in defence of any person from unlawful violence; (b) in order to effect a lawful arrest or to prevent the escape of a person lawfully detained; (c) in action lawfully taken for the purpose of quelling a riot or insurrection. ), and that the most appropriate interpretation will that which realises the aims and objectives of the treaty. Illustratively, the Complainants also refer to the decisions of the Commission in Media Rights Agenda and Constitutional Rights Project v. Nigeria8 , Interights &Others v. Islamic Republic of Mauritania9 , Social and Economic Rights Action Center &The Centre for Economic and Social Rights v. NIGERIA10 , wherein the Commission has upheld and utilized the purposive and generous interpretation approach even without expressly saying so. 43. The Complainants submit that Article 4 of the African Charter neither expressly permit nor prohibit the death penalty. It protects the right to life without any limitations. The interpretation given to the word 'arbitrary' is important. In addition, Article 4 should also be interpreted 'in accordance' with Article 5. In this regard, the Complainants submit that the two articles interpreted in a holistic, generous and purposive manner would reveal that the right to life and dignity are inherent to all individuals under the African Charter. 44. The Complainants make reference to the South African case of S v Mkwanyane &Anor where the death penalty was found to be a violation of the right to life under section 9 of the South African Interim Constitution. The Complainants note that Section 9 of the South African Interim Constitution offers 'absolute unqualified' protection to the right to life while the African Charter prohibits the deprivation of life 'arbitrarily.' There is however a general limitation clause in the South African Constitution. 45. The Complainants submit that there is no general limitation clause in the African Charter and that all limitations are contained in the Articles themselves. They also referred to the Media Rights Agenda and Others v. Nigeria that a limitation may never have a consequence that the right itself becomes illusory. Therefore the interpretation of the African Charter should be exercised to ensure that the rights are realised as this is the overall purpose of the African Charter. Consequently, the word 'arbitrarily' should not be interpreted so as to limit the protection of Article 4 so as to make the right to life illusory. According to the Complainants, in S v Mkwanyane &Anor, the Judges observed that the death penalty would not be a reasonable limitation on the right to life because the application of the death penalty is inherently arbitrary. 6