Council of Europe at its Extraordinary Session held on 12-14 October 2011, text in Steering Committee for Human Rights, Report to the Committee of Ministers on the Drafting of the Legal Instrument for the Accession of the European Union to the Convention for the protection of Human Rigths, Council for Human Rights Doc. CDDH (2011) 009, Strasbourg, 14 October 2011, pp. 5-13 (website http://www.coe.int/t/dghl/standardsetting/hrpolicy/accession/Meeting_reports/CDDH_2011_009_en.pdf). The Accession of the European Union to the European Convention for the protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms of 4 November 1950 envisaged by Article 6 (2) of the treaty on the European Union, dated 7 February 1992, as amended by the Treaty of Lisbon of 13 December 2007. 4 In its submission, dated 29 April 2011, in answer to Mr Falana's Application, the African Union indeed dwelt merit of the case; the same applies to Mr Falana's brief in reply to the submissions of the African Union, dated 23 June 2011. 5 See the Verbatim Records of Hearings of 22 and 23 March 2012. 6 Rule 76(5) of the Rules of the International Court of Justice indeed provides that: "upon receipt by the Registry of a preliminary objection, proceedings on the merits shall be suspended." 7 Rule 79(9) of the Rule of Court. 8 In its observation in reply to Mr Falana's Application, the African Union actually delved into the merits of the case even though it did raise preliminary objections. 9 The Applicant filed a 21- page document titled "Oral Submissions" dated 21 March 2012: the Respondent, for its part, a filed a 16-page document, undated, as well as another 10-page document dated 23 March 2012 in which it replied to the "Oral Submission" of the Applicant and to the questions put by the judges. 10 See the purport of the email sent by Registrar to the Parties on 20 March 2012 stating "Please as we finalize for hearing, the Registry would be most obliged if we could have a copy of your oral pleadings in the morning of Thursday to facilitate with interpretation." 11 Rule 48 of the Rules indeed provides that once corrected by the Parties, provided that such corrections do not affect the substance of what was said ( para.2), signed by the president and the Registrar, the verbatim record shall then "constitute the true reflection of the proceedings" ( para.3). 6