88. The Commission notes that the last attempt by the Complainants to pursue
available local remedy in the Respondent State was on 14 January 2022, and that the
Commission was seized of the complaint on 11 May 2022, a period of four months,
which conforms with the international standard of a "reasonable time". The
Commission therefore finds that the Complainants seized the Commission within a
reasonable time from when they realized that local remedies are unavailable or
ineffective, and that consequently, the requirement of Article 56(6) of the African
Charter has been met.
89. Article 56(7) of the African Charter provides for the requirement that a
Communication must not be considered if it has already been settled in accordance
with the principles of the African Charter of the United Nations, the AU
Constitutive Act, or the African Charter.
90. The Complainants submit that this Communication meets this requirement. The
Commission has not found any evidence to suggftstthe contrary, ~p. consequently,
holds that the Complainants' Communication complies with the requirement under
Article 56(7) of the African Charter.
91. The Commission therefore declared the Communication admissible.
Merits
The Complainants' submissions on th~:Merits
Alleged violation of Articles 2 and 3 of the Afrjcan Charter
92. The Complainants allege violation of the rights to non-discrimination (Article 2) and
equal protection (Article~~)under the African Charter.
93. The Complainants submit that they had suffered discrimination on the basis of their
ethnic group. They st<;l-tedthat they hail from the minority tribe of KUKU, in a
territory known"as KajoKeji;in the far South of the country, and that people from the
KUKU tribe are very few in the capital City Juba and underrepresented in all the 3
branches of the government, the national army and the police.
94. They also state that when their house was raided by the military police, no senior
authority that they had approached in the army or the police showed interest to stop
the violations, others declined to hear a case against a member of their tribe. They
aver notwithstanding that the Juba area was the only diversely inhabited area in
South Sudan that they suffered a terrible ethnic based discrimination due to the
arbitrariness and brutal misconduct of law enforcement, which seemed like never
going to stop without the Complainants fleeing for safety.
O.. t-IUM~~
95. The complainants further submit that discrimination is interpre ~ O\~c!E~~
,
equal protection of the law or equal rights or enjoyment to a per, "or
o.£.
a&>
authority. They aver that while the perpetrators enjoy maxim : pr'te<t~i\of
lw
national laws, they (the complainants) are ethnically discrimiri _eg gah1st~y ~ ~'f
Respondent State through its agents, by being denied equal pr·. ~c~
otltf-i~ f#.eron. '
C,I~
77th
Ordinary Session of the ACHPR
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