opinion, simply be conceived as providing for an exception to the principle of
the “final” character of the judgments of the Court enshrined in the preceding
paragraph.
10. I am also of the view that the Court should have clearly spelt out the three
conditions for admissibility of an application for review as provided for by the
Protocol and the Rules, that is to say that the application
1) must contain new
evidence,2) which the Court “or” the Applicant had no knowledge of when the
judgment was being rendered, and 3) to be submitted within six months of the
date the said party discovered the new evidence,
11. In so doing, the Court could have taken advantage of this occasion to make a
useful clarification on some of the weaknesses contained in the Protocol and the
Rules on this issue.
12. The discrepancy between the English and French versions of paragraph 3 of
Article 28 of the Protocol could indeed explain why one of the three conditions
which it poses is not identical to that of paragraph | of Rule 67 of the Rules.
13. The
possible
“which
English
French version of paragraph 3 of Article 28 of the Protocol makes it
for the Court to review its judgment in the light of new evidence
was not within its knowledge at the time of its decision”; for its part, the
version of this paragraph does not contain such a condition.
14. As for paragraph 1 of Rule 67 of the Rules, both the English and French
versions provide that it is the “party” which files the application for review, that
is not supposed to have had knowledge of the new evidence at the time the
judgment was rendered.
15. In this regard, it is important to point out that the instruments governing the
functioning of other international Courts and dealing with the issue of revision
or review, require that both the Court and the party requesting the review must
have been unaware of the new fact; this is for example provided for by Article
25 of the Protocol establishing the Court of Justice of the Economic Community
of West African States,’ Article 48 (1) of the Protocol establishing the African
Court of Justice and Human Rights,’ Article 61 (1) of the Statute of the
+ «An application for revision for a decision may be made only when it is based upon the
discovery of some fact of such a nature as to be a decisive factor, which fact was, when the
decision was given, unknown to the Court and also to the party claiming revision, provided
always that such ignorance was not due to negligence»,
* «An application for revision of a judgment may be made to the Court only when it is based
upon discovery ofa new fact of such nature as to be a decisive factor, which fact was, when
the judgment was given, unknown to the Court and also to the party claiming revision,
provided that such ignorance was not due to negligence».
0.