AFRICAN
COURT ON HUMAN
AND PEOPLES' RIGHTS
Application 031/2015
Dismas Bunyerere
Vv.
United Republic of Tanzania
Separate
Opinion
appended
to the Judgment of 28 November 2019
1.
| concur with the opinion of the majority of the Judges as regards admissibility of
the Application, jurisdiction of the Court and the Operative Part.
2.
However, in my thinking, the manner in which the Court treated admissibility with
regard to the objection raised by the Respondent State on the filing of the
Application within a reasonable time, runs counter to the provisions of Article 56 of
the Charter, Article 6(2) of the Protocol and Rules 39 and 40 of the Rules.
3.
Under Article 56 of the Charter and Rule 40 of the Rules in their respective
paragraph 6, it is clearly stated that applications must be “submitted within a
reasonable time from the date local remedies were exhausted or from the date
set by the Court as being the commencement of the time limit within which it shall
be seized with the matter’.
4. It is clear from the aforesaid that the legislator laid down two (2) options as to how to
determine the starting point of reasonable period:
i.
the date
of exhaustion
of local remedies:
in the instant case, this date was set by
the Court at 29/07/2013 - date of the judgment of the Court of Appeal. Between this
date and that of referral of the matter to the Court, there was a time lapse of two (2)
years, four (4) months and ten (10) days.
ii. the date set by the Court as being the commencement of the time limit within which
it shall be seized with the matter: it is noteworthy in this regard that although the Court
took into account the date of exhaustion of local remedies to determine the