(Unreported) §§52 & 54), the issue concerned imminent violation of the rights
of the Applicants and the Court held that :
“(…) The Court has always considered that if, in principle, it should
only concern itself with sanctioning violence leading to effective, real,
and proven violations, and not possible, potential or probable
violations, it can validly concern itself with the yet – to – be committed,
but highly imminent violations too.
The Court has thus declared in the case of CDP and others against the
State of Burkina Faso of 13 July 2015, wherein it affirmed that if the
Court were to wait for the applications of candidature to be possibly
rejected before acting, if it had to wait for the exhaustion of the effects
of any transgression before stating the law, its jurisdiction in a context
of urgency would have no sense, because the electoral rights of the
presumed victims for participating in the electoral race would
inexorably be breached.
In the present case, since the acceptance of any candidature in the
Presidential Elections is tied to the new law on sponsorship, two – third
of the political parties in Senegal would be excluded in the 24th
February 2019 Presidential Elections. It follows that the effective
violation of human rights, as alleged, is imminent. Consequently,
contrary to the position held by the State of Senegal, the Court must
declare its jurisdiction, to hear and examine the initiating
Application”.
Regarding the issue of quality to act, the Court notes that in the instant
case, Plaintiff/Applicant indicated, in its initiating Application that,
pursuant to the time held case law of the Court, the risk of a future
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