- 18 7.7. The defendant has not therefore satisfied this Court nor has it put forward any lawful basis upon which the plaintiff was arrested and detained. Having failed to do so, we hold that the arrest was unlawful and arbitrary. This court has held in a plethora of cases that an arrest must be reasonable and also be premised on legal ground to be justified. See the case of MAMADOU TANDJA V. REPUBLIC OF NIGER & 1 OR (2010), CCJELR. In the case of A. W. Mukong v. Cameroon (Views adopted on 21 July 1994), in UN doc.GA OR, A/49/40 (vol. II), p. 181 para. 9.8, the applicant alleged that he had been arbitrarily arrested and detained for several months, an allegation rejected by the State party on the basis that the arrest and detention had been carried out in accordance with the domestic law of Cameroon. The Committee concluded that article 9(1) had been violated, since the author’s detention “was neither reasonable nor necessary in the circumstances of the case”. See also the decision of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights in CastilloPáez V. Peru, judgment of November 3, 1997 Annual Report InterAmerican Court of Human Rights 1997, p. 263, para. 56. 7.8 The next issue for consideration is the Plaintiffs allegation of inhuman and degrading treatment meted to him by the Defendant. The Plaintiff’s allegation is that the armed agents of the defendant blind folded him, chained his hands and legs and carried him away; that they also threatened to shoot his leg and leave him by the road side if he fails to show them the house of the suspect they were looking for; that he was made to sleep on a bare and very hard floor which made him sustain an injury at the back of his head without, his being informed of the offense he had committed. 7.9. Article 5 of the African Charter on Human and Peoples Rights provides: “Every individual shall have the right to the respect of the dignity inherent in a human being and to the recognition of his legal status. All forms of exploitation and degradation of man, particularly slavery, slave trade, torture, cruel, inhuman or degrading punishment and treatment shall be prohibited.”