00
024I
1.
We agree with the Majority Judgment, of which we are both part, in all respects
that the Application, as filed by Mr. Jean-Claude Roger Gombert against the Republic of
C6te d'lvoire, is inadmissible on the grounds that the dispute has been "settled" within
the meaning of Article 56 (7) of the African Charter on Human and Peoples' Rights. The
provision prescribes that an Application filed before the Court should "not deal with cases
which have been settled ...in accordance with the principles of the Charter of the United
Nations, or the Charter of the Organization of African Unity or the provisions of the
present Charter."
2.
We have, however, felt the need to make our position known with regard to the
issue of the identity of the Applicant and his company AGRILAND which pursuant to
Article 56 (1) or Rule 40 (1) of the Rules is an important admissibility criterion. This is an
issue that arose severaltimes in the Judgment.
3.
We are of the opinion that the Court should have addressed the issue at the onset
and given an elaborate explanation as to why the Applicant and AGRILAND are deemed
to be the same person for the purposes of the Application. Though the Applicant and the
company are two separate persons, the Court opted to lift the corporate veil of
AGRILAND and take the two as one without adequately expatiating on how it arrived at
this conclusion. ln our considered view, the justifications the Court gave to support its
positions are insufficient for the following reasons.
4.
First, the Court only mentioned the fact that the Applicant and his company,
AGRILANDl, are two different personalities at a later stage in the judgment. Given the
importance of clearly identifying the identity of the Parties for the Court's assessment of
the Application, this exercise should have been made and clearly spelt out at earlier, at
least, at admissibility stage (paragraphs. 21-22).
5.
Secondly, there are instances where the Court assumed that the Applicant was
the one who filed the case before the ECOWAS Court of Justice although it is patently
his company,
clear from the record that he did not and that it was rather filed
AGRILAND. Had the Court clarified this matter earlier, there would not have been such
confusion as to the true identity of the Applicant.
by
6.
Lastly, the issue of identity of Parties is something, which has been dealt with by
other international courts in similar cases. The Court's reticence to do the same and
Application No. 038/2016. Judgment o'12210312018, Jean-Claude Roger Gombeft v. Republic of
d'lvoire, para.46.