216. The Respondent State contends that the Application was made in bad faith and is, therefore, an abuse of the right to institute proceedings, and submits, therefore, that the Application should be declared inadmissible. * 217. In its Reply, the Applicant State submits that the objection be dismissed. First, it argues that the existence of multiple applications against the same State does not constitute an abuse of process. It maintains that in XYZ v. Republic of Benin of 27 November 2020 the Court laid down criteria for determining whether proceedings constitute an abuse of process, and ruled that, for an application to be regarded as an abuse of process, it must be manifestly frivolous and lodged in bad faith. Moreover, according to the Applicant State, the mere fact that an applicant files several applications against the same Respondent State does not necessarily indicate a lack of good faith. 218. The Applicant State avers that the instant Application cannot be regarded as frivolous given the serious nature of the grave and massive violations of human rights it alleges, particularly, as it has good reason to believe that the Respondent State is responsible for them. It submits that the Application has not been lodged in bad faith as it does not run counter to “the general principles of law and the established procedures of judicial practice.” 219. The Applicant State concedes that it has lodged an application before another international court against the Respondent State, but points out that the two proceedings are still pending and are neither based on the same subject-matter nor on the same legal grounds. 220. The Applicant State also argues that, under Rule 41(3)(c) of the Rules, it is optional to inform the Court of any proceedings pending before another court, since the phrase “where appropriate” is used. It adds that the application against the Respondent State before the EACJ was filed after 51

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