87.The Applicant maintains that he was arbitrarily detained by the Togolese
Republic and relies on various instruments to this end.
88.He claims to have been detained for a period of twenty-one (21) months,
sometimes twenty-one (21) weeks, without any evidence (see page 8 of
the December 8, 2016 application); which seems to be confusing.
89.In principle, detention is arbitrary, only when it is manifestly impossible
to claim any legal ground to justify deprivation of liberty.
90.The alleged facts relating to the arbitrary detention, after 23 years, are
grossly statute-barred.
91.Indeed, the code of criminal procedure, in its Article 7, provides that the
action of the Public Prosecutor's Office is statute-barred when the offense
has not been granted by the court of law, by summons or remittance order,
within a period of ten years in criminal matters and five years in the case
of offense, counting from the day it was committed.
92.We found that after 23 years, the facts are statute-barred, considering,
further, that Mr. MADO claimed the amnesty of the facts attributed to
him, thus recognizing their veracity and therefore the need for his
detention at that time.
93.That Applicant's detention is on legal grounds and cannot be described as
arbitrary as it was necessary for the purposes of investigation.
94.Furthermore, his detention was decided by the competent judicial
authority of the Togolese Republic.
95.It is also worth recalling the established case-law of the Court of Justice,
that in case No. ECW/CCJ/APP/01/06- EL HAJI Hammami against the
Republic of Nigeria and four others: “since the Applicant has been
arrested, detained and prosecuted before the competent courts of a
Member State, in accordance with the laws and regulations in force, the
Court cannot hear the appeal, without risk of interfering, without just
reason, in the domain within the jurisdiction of national courts”.
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