Registry before the said date of 30 April 2021.4 Therefore, the notification of
an application after the time-limit stated above does not have any bearing
on the personal jurisdiction of the Court.
25. In the instant case, the Court notes that the Application was filed with the
Registry of the Court on 15 May 2020, that is, eleven (11) months and
seventeen (17) days prior to the effective date of withdrawal of the
Declaration, which was on 30 April 2021.
26. Accordingly, the Court dismisses the Respondent State’s objection and
finds that it has personal jurisdiction to hear the Application.
B. Objection to temporal jurisdiction
27. The Respondent State maintains that the violations of the right to property
and the right to information, which were alleged to have been committed
between 1980 and 1998, predate the entry into force of the Protocol in
relation to the Respondent State. It further maintains that the same applies
to the other violations alleged by the Applicants, which were allegedly
committed after 25 January 2004.
28. The Applicants did not make any submission on this objection.
***
29. The Court recalls that, as it has previously held, it does not have temporal
jurisdiction to hear cases concerning violations resulting from an
“instantaneous and completed” act which occurred before the entry into
force of the Protocol in respect of a Respondent State.5 Since the
4
Kouassi Kouame Patrice and Baba Sylla v. Republic of Côte d'Ivoire, ACtHPR, Application No.
015/2021, Judgment of 22 September 2022 (merits and reparations), § 20.
5 Kouadio Kobena Fory v. Republic of Côte d'Ivoire, ACtHPR, Application No. 34/2017, Judgment of 2
December 2021 (merits and reparations), § 34; Jebra Kambole v. United Republic of Tanzania, ACtHPR,
Application No. 018/2018, Judgment of 15 July 2020 (merits and reparations), § 24; Norbert Zongo and
others v. Burkina Faso (merits) (28 March 2014) 1 AfCLR 219, §§ 67 and 68.
8