2015, the Applicant filed four (4) habeas
lawfulness of his detention. The Court also
penalized for attempting these remedies and
held in conclusion that the period cited above
corpus applications to challenge the
noted that the Applicant could not be
that, besides, he was under detention. It
was reasonable.
5. This reasoning on the part of the Court runs counter to the very logic of the exception
made by the legislator as to the second prerogative conferred on the Court to set a date
as being the commencement of the time limit within which it shall be seized with a matter.
6.Indeed, whereas with regard to local remedies, the Court has held that Applicants are
obliged to exercise only ordinary remedies, there would be no contradiction with this
position had the Court, based on the fact that the Applicant filed for extraordinary
remedies or “habeas corpus’ as in the present case, retained the date of these remedies
as being the commencement of the time limit within which it shall be seized with the
matter, instead of determining the reasonable period relying on these remedies as facts.
7. The Court should have justified this option in the following manner:
"Notwithstanding the fact that it has considered that local remedies have been
as evidenced by the Court of Appeal Judgment of 04/06/2012, the Court, in
fairness and justice, would take as element of assessment, the date on which
corpus application was filed, that is 2015”, which would have given a more
time as it is shorter.
exhausted
the spirit of
the habeas
reasonable
8. By ignoring the aforesaid date and simply citing additional elements such as the
Applicant's detention to justify reasonable time?, the Court failed to correctly apply Rule
40(6) of the Rules.
ae
Bensaoula
Chafika
Judge at the African Court on Human and Peoples' Rights
—
2 Paragraph 67 of the Judgment