66. The Court recalls its jurisprudence that: “…the reasonableness of the time
frame for seizure depends on the specific circumstances of the case…”. 25
Some of the circumstances that the Court has taken into consideration
include: imprisonment, being lay without the benefit of legal assistance,
indigence, illiteracy, the recent establishment of the Court and lack of
awareness of the existence of the Court.
67. This Court has previously held that it is not enough for Applicants to simply
plead, for example, that they were incarcerated, are lay or indigent, to justify
their failure to file an application within a reasonable period of time.26 As the
Court has previously pointed out, even for lay, incarcerated or indigent
applicants are duty-bound to demonstrate how their personal situation
prevented them from filing their applications before this Court in a timely
manner.
68. In the instant Application, the Court observes that the judgment of the Court
of Appeal in Criminal Appeal No. 322 of 2007 was delivered on 1 June 2010,
while the Applicant filed his Application before this Court on 31 August 2017.
The Court notes that a period of seven (7) years, two (2) months and thirty
(30) days elapsed between 1 June 2010 and 31 August 2017 when the
Applicant filed the Application before this Court. The issue for determination,
therefore, is whether the period that the Applicant took to file the Application
before the Court is reasonable.
69. Additionally, in the instant case, the Court takes note of the Applicant’s
submissions that he only came to know about the Court’s existence in May
2017, after an application by another inmate from the same prison where
he was incarcerated was filed before this Court on 13 June 2017 and
subsequently, he also filed his own Application on 31 August 2017. A
25
Beneficiaries of the late Norbert Zongo, Abdoulaye Nikiema alias Ablasse, Ernest Zongo and Blaise
IIboudo v. Republic of Burkina Faso (merits) (24 June 2014) 1 AfCLR 219, § 92. See also Alex Thomas
v. United Republic of Tanzania (merits) (20 November 2015) 1 AfCLR 465, § 73.
26 Layford Makene v. United Republic of Tanzania, ACtHPR, Application No. 028/2017 Ruling of 2
December 2021 (admissibility), § 48; Rajabu Yusuph v. United Republic of Tanzania, ACtHPR,
Application No. 036/2017, Ruling of 24 March 2022 (admissibility), § 65.
19