Court’s determination:
41. Article 30(2) of the Treaty provides for the time within which
proceedings in this Court may be instituted. The Article reads as
follows:
“The proceedings provided for in this Article shall be instituted
within two months of the enactment, publication, directive,
decision or action complained of, or in the absence thereof,
of the day in which it came to the knowledge of the
complainant, as the case may be.”
42. Rule 39(1) of this Court’s Rules of Procedure requires parties to
proceedings before the Court to annex to their pleadings all the
documentation that they intend to rely on in support of their
claims. For ease of reference the Rule is reproduced below:
“There shall be annexed to the original of every pleading
certified copies of any relevant document in support of the
contentions contained in the pleading.”
43.
On the other hand, Rule 41 of the same Rules enjoins parties to
raise Preliminary Objections by pleading. It reads:
“(1) A party may by pleading raise any preliminary objection.
(2) Where a respondent intends to raise a preliminary objection
s/he shall, before the scheduling conference under Rule 53 of
these Rules, give not less than seven (7) days’ written notice of
preliminary objection to the Court and to the other parties of
the grounds of that objection.”
44.
For purposes of Preliminary Objections, therefore, the net effect of
Rules 39(1) and 41(1) is that a Preliminary Objection should be
pleaded in a Reference and all documentation in support thereof
must be annexed to the Reference. In addition, a duty is placed
upon a party that intends to raise a Preliminary Objection to serve
REFERENCE No. 10 OF 2013
Page 21