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30. During its 41 Ordinary Session held in Accra, in May 2007, the African Commission registered
the request submitted by one of the Parties, notably the Ivorian State, which consisted in requesting
the ACHPR to defer its decision on the merits on the grounds that the current reconciliation process in
Côte d’Ivoire would take care of the subject of the dispute which opposed the MIDH and the Ivorian
State in the context of an amicable settlement.
st
31. The African Commission, at its 41 Ordinary Session held in Accra, Ghana in May 2007, had
decided to grant the request submitted by the Respondent State and had deferred its decision on the
nd
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merits to the 42 Ordinary Session scheduled to take place in Brazzaville, Congo, from 14 to
th
28 November 2007.
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32. Since its decision on deferment taken at its 41 Ordinary Session in Accra, Ghana, up to the
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42 Session held in Brazzaville, Congo, the African Commission has not received any other comment
or request from the two Parties, namely neither from the Complainant Party, the MIDH (IHRM), nor the
Ivorian State.
nd
33. However, during the 42 Ordinary Session, in Brazzaville, Congo, the African Commission
received a new letter from the Ivorian State which requested the ACHPR to defer again its decision on
the merits on the grounds that the current reconciliation process in Ivory Coast [sic].
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34. In this same letter received by the ACHPR during its 42 Ordinary Session, the Ivorian State
provided some annexes showing how the negotiations between the State and one association,
specially the Association of Malians in Ivory Coast, were going and also promised to send further
evidence of the negotiation process in Ivory Coast, especially between Open Society Justice and the
MIDH.
Law
Admissibility
35. The African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights stipulates in its Article 56 that
communications referred to in Article 55, to be considered, should necessarily be sent after exhaustion
of local remedies, if any, unless the procedure of exhaustion of local remedies is unduly prolonged. It
is important to examine the applicability of the conditions governing the exhaustion of local remedies in
the present communication.
36. In this case, the Complainant indicates that “In Côte d’Ivoire, remedies against laws should be
brought before the Constitutional Council. Whereas according to Article 77 of the Ivorian Constitution
laws can only be brought before the Constitutional Council before they are promulgated”. It concludes
therefore that “the law in question can no longer be brought before the Ivorian Constitutional Council
as it has already been promulgated, indeed as well as all of its decrees of application”.
37. The Complainant further contends that it could not have had recourse to a local remedy in this
case as Article 77 of the Constitution of Côte d’Ivoire stipulates that laws can only be brought before
the Constitutional Council by the Speaker of the National Assembly, or by at least one tenth of the
National Assembly Members, or by Parliamentary Groups, or by the Human Rights Defender
Associations which are legally established and only where it is a question of laws which relate to public
liberties where the said Associations are concerned; which is obviously not the case of the contentious
law currently being called into question.
38. The MIDH concludes therefore that the obligation for the exhaustion of local remedies
beforehand is not, as a result, applicable to the present complaint.
39. In its memorandum conveyed to the African Commission in November 2003, the Respondent
State argues that, for its part, the communication is inadmissible due to the “non-exhaustion of local
remedies and to the disparaging and insulting nature of the said communication”.
40. The Respondent State points out that pertaining to the non-exhaustion of local remedies,
contrary to the affirmation of the Complainant, there is, by virtue of the provisions of Article 96 of the
Ivorian Constitution, the possibility for any Complainant to invoke a plea on the unconstitutionality of a
law, since the modalities for the implementation of this remedy are governed by law. The fact that the