The Court also found that it had temporal jurisdiction as the alleged violations
occurred after the Respondent State had become a party to the Protocol and the
violations stemmed from the Applicant’s trial and conviction, which took place after
the Respondent State became a party to the Protocol. Furthermore, the Applicant
remains incarcerated based on what he considers an unfair process, the violations
are deemed continuing in nature. Lastly, it found that it had territorial jurisdiction
because the alleged violations occurred within the Respondent State’s territory. In
light of all the above, the Court held that it has jurisdiction to determine the present
Application.
The Court noted that pursuant to Article 6(2) of the Protocol, it must rule on the
admissibility of all cases filed before it. In the instant Application, it noted that the
Respondent State raised an objection that the Applicant had not exhausted the
local remedies available within its legal system as envisaged under Rule 50(2)(e)
of the Rules. Specifically, that if the Applicant was aggrieved by the judgment of
the Court of Appeal, he should have instituted an application for review of the
decision of the Court of Appeal as provided under the Court of Appeal Rules. On
his part, the Applicant contended that he filed his application after exhausting
domestic remedies since the case was considered and dismissed by the highest
court in the Respondent State.
The Court, in response to this objection, observed that under Article 56(5) of the
Charter, whose provisions are restated in Rule 50(2)(e) of the Rules, any
application filed before it must fulfil the requirement of exhaustion of local remedies
unless the same are unavailable, ineffective and insufficient or the domestic
proceedings to pursue them are unduly prolonged. Furthermore, the Court noted
that the Applicant’s case was considered successively by the District Court at
Morogoro, the High Court at Dar es Salaam, and finally by the Court of Appeal
which rendered their decisions on 20 July 2010, 7 September 2010; and 14
November 2014, respectively. Given that the Court of Appeal, is the highest judicial
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