recognizes the right of the State to control the use of or even deprive the use of
property belonging to individuals or legal persons under the conditions set out
in that provision.
In Broniowski v Poland (2005) 40 EHRR 21, the Strasbourg Court explained that
“The concept of “possessions” in the first part of Art.1 of Protocol No.1 has an
autonomous meaning which is not limited to the ownership of material goods and is
independent from the formal classification in domestic law. In the same way as
material goods, certain other rights and interests constituting assets can also be
regarded as “property rights” and thus as “possessions” for the purposes of this
provision. In each case the issue that needs to be examined is whether the
circumstances of the case, considered as a whole, conferred on the Applicant title to
a substantive interest protected by Art. 1 of Protocol No. 1
As a state party to the African Charter on Human and Peoples Right, the Defendant
is under an International obligation to recognize the rights, duties and freedoms
enshrined in the Charter and undertake to adopt legislative or other measures to give
effect to them.
This court has held in a plethora of cases that once the application brought before it
invokes its human rights jurisdiction, it is vested with competence to entertain same.
In PRIVATE ALIMU V. FEDERAL REPUBLIC OF NIGERIA ECW/CCJ/
RUL/05/11 (UNREPORTED), this Court stressed that its jurisdiction cannot be in
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