4. The Applicants submit that on 2 August 2019 one member of the National Assembly averring to represent sixty-five (65) other members of the National Assembly petitioned the Constitutional Council of the Respondent State on the non-conformity of Articles 5, 16 and 17 of the said law with Articles 4, 53 and 123 of the Respondent State’s Constitution. 5. According to the Applicants, the Constitutional Council of the Respondent State declared on 5 August 2019 the petition inadmissible on the ground that it made reference to a draft version of the impugned law while the Constitutional Council does not decide on the constitutionality of draft laws. 6. From the record before the Court it emerges that on 6 August 2019 the same applicants in that case filed another petition to the Constitutional Council that referred to the actual law adopted by parliament instead of the draft law. 7. The Applicants submit that on 13 August 2019 the Constitutional Council declared the petition again inadmissible for the reason that the law had already been promulgated and that it does not have the power to assess the constitutionality of a law that has already been promulgated by the President. 8. The record also shows that on 4 March 2020 the Respondent State adopted Order N° 2020/306 which modified Law N° 2019-708 of 5 August 2019 on the recomposition of the IEC by giving opposition parties or political groupings the possibility of proposing one additional personality to the electoral body, both at the level of the Central and the Local electoral commissions. 9. Furthermore, the Application relies on the judgment delivered by this Court on 18 November 2016 in the matter of Action pour la Protection des Droits de Homme (APDH) v Céte d'ivoire (merits)' concerning the composition of the Electoral 1 See Actions pour la Protection des Droits de l'Homme (APDH) v. Céte d'Ivoire (merits) (2016) 1 AfCLR 668.

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