the Court Protocol on 25 January 2004; or the date of its operationalization in November 2006 22. 60. Considering that the Court Protocol was adopted in 1998, five years before the adoption of the Maputo Protocol, the above cannot be considered as the date of establishment of the Court. In such an instance, Article 32 would most likely have been excluded from the adopted text. 61. At the adoption of the Maputo Protocol on 7 November 2003, the Court Protocol had yet to enter into force and only became operative on 25 January 2004. The date of entry into force, therefore, seems to reflect the most plausible date for the "establishment" of the Court as it occurred after the adoption of the Court Protocol" . The implication, _however, is that the Court was established before the Maputo Protocol entere_d into force on 25 November 2005, which means that Article 32 was a dead letter from the date of the Maputo Protocol's entry into force and had no effect, essentially: regulating a period of transition which never existed. Indeed, at the entry into force of the Court Protocol, the African Court had yet to elect its judges. The delay was occasioned by the desire to merge the African Court with the propos~d ~ourt of Justice of the African Union. Following EX.CL/Dec.165 (VI) ordering' for the operationalization of the Court, the later became operational in November 2006. 62. The Commission's jurisprudence supports the position that the date of operationalization is indeed the date of' establishment' of the Court. In OMCT v. DRC23 , the Commission held that it was competent to apply the Maputo Protocol, as the all~ged violations occurred 'prior to the advent of the African Court ... in November 2006 1 and continued after the State's adoption of the Protocol. The Commission seems to have adopted the position that 1 establishment1 within the meaning of Article 32 refers to the date of operationalization of the Court. 63. The above notwithstanding, in this Commission's considered view, interpreting 'establishment' as either the date of entry into force, operationalization or date of 'optimum readiness' nevertheless concludes that by 2009, when the present violations occurred, the African Court had indeed been established within the meaning of Article 32 of the Maputo Protocol. 64. The Commission notes that Article 32 is silent on the exact implications of the Court's establishment. In this Commission's considered view, however, the establishment of the Court ends the transitional period. As discussed earlier, Article 32 regulatei the coming into operation of Article 27 and modifies its