The Law
Admissibility
Complainants' Submission on Admissibility
46. The Complainants submit that the Communication fulfills all the requirements of Article 56 of the African
Charter.
47. The Complainants submit that the Communication indicates the author, which is Tshifhiwa Samuel
Makhale and Dabalorivhuwa Patriotic Front, and the details of the author are indicated in paragraph 1.2 of
the Communication.
48. The Complainants also submit that the dates of these violations, and the group of victims against whom
these violations occurred have been stated. It also states that it is not possible to list the names of every
one of the victims of the violation, due to the fact that there are thousands of them, but that the class of
victims has been stated.
49. The Complainants state that the Communication is compatible with the Charter of the Organisation for
African Unity (Now the Constitutive Act of the AU) and the African Charter, and that the Communication is
not written in insulting or disparaging language.
50. The Complainants also state that the Communication is not based exclusively on news disseminated
through the mass media and all information given is within its personal knowledge and is true and correct.
The Complainants go further to state that any news disseminated through mass media on the matter, was
done at their instance.
51. The Complainants state that all remedies available to them in South Africa have been exhausted; that a
complaint was made to the Public Protector in November 1996, and after then the matter was brought
before the Transvaal Provincial Division of the High Court of South Africa in July 2004. It was later brought
before the Supreme Court of Appeal of South Africa in November 2005 and finally it was taken to the
Constitutional Court of South Africa in February 2006.
52. The Complainants allege that after all these domestic remedies have been exhausted; there is no other
judicial remedy available in South Africa to which the Complainants can take the complaint.
53. The Complainants state that this Communication has not been brought before, nor is being considered
by any other international human rights body.
Respondent State's Submission on Admissibility
54. The Respondent State challenges the Admissibility of the Complainants' submission. The Respondent
State submits that the Communication does not fulfill the requirements set out in sub-Articles 2 and 5 of
Article 56 of the African Charter, and should be declared inadmissible.
55. The Respondent State submits that the Communication does not fulfill the requirement of Article 56 (2)
because it is not compatible with the African Charter. It supports this claim by stating that the
Communication pertains to events which took place outside the period of application of the African Charter.
It went further to cite the Commission's decision in Amnesty International v. Sudan3 , where the
Commission held that it would consider Communications pertaining to events that took place prior to the
entry into force of the Charter, where "there are continuing violations???. The Respondent State argues
that the Communication does not show that there is such continuing violation and that there is in fact no
such continuing violation of human rights.
56. It also went further to cite other International human rights jurisprudence, especially that of the Human
Rights Committee. The Committee, in deciding on the admissibility of the case of Gueye v France4 ,
involving human rights violations which occurred before the entry into force of the International Covenant
on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), interpreted "continuing violation" as violation which has effects which
themselves constitute a violation of rights
57. The Respondent State argues that the Complainants claim that the effect of Government Notice 3 of
1994 which contained the revised formula for determining payouts in respect of the second privatization
scheme was inaccurate. The Respondent State, submits that this Notice was published on 23 February
1994, and that the Republic of South Africa deposited its instrument of accession to the African Charter in
July 1996 and only became a party to the Charter in October 1996, more than 2 years after the events
complained of, therefore falling outside the time in which the Charter applied. According to the Respondent
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