Arusha, Tanzania
Email: registrar@african-court.org
Website: www.african-court.org
Telephone: +255-272-510-510
JUDGMENT SUMMARY
violations of rights guaranteed in the Charter or any other human rights instruments
ratified by the Respondent State.
Recalling that in the instant case, the Applicants alleged violations of rights protected
under previously cited provisions of the Charter, ICCPR and UDHR, to to which the
Respondent State is a party, the Court held that it cannot be said that it would be
acting as a court of instance by examining the present Application. Accordingly, the
Court equally dismissed this second limb of the objection.
In light of the foregoing, the Court dismissed the Respondent State’s objection and
held that it has material jurisdiction to determine the present Application.
Regarding other aspects of jurisdiction, the Court found that it had personal
jurisdiction, as the Application was filed before the Respondent State’s withdrawal of
its Article 34(6) Declaration under the Protocol to the African Charter on Human and
Peoples’ Rights on the Establishment of an African Court on Human and Peoples’
Rights (the Protocol) took effect. It also held that it had temporal jurisdiction since the
alleged violations were of a continuing nature, and territorial jurisdiction as the
violations occurred within the territory of the Respondent State. As a consequence of
its findings on all aspects of its jurisdiction, the Court unanimously, declared that it has
jurisdiction to hear the Application.
On admissibility, the Respondent State averred that the alleged prohibition involving
prisoners and detainees’ rights to vote had previously been subjected to domestic
judicial scrutiny. It further averred that similar claims had been considered by its High
Court in the public interest case of Tito Elia Magoti and Another vs National Electoral
Commission and 2 Others, where that court declared the provisions of Section 11(1)(c)
of the NEA unconstitutional and void. It submits that, in the case cited, an appeal is
pending before the Court of Appeal whose outcome the Applicants in the present
Application are obliged to await in order to fulfil the requirement of exhaustion of
domestic remedies.
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