effects during the transition period. Post-transition, Article 27 should be read,
as is, this is, without reference to the transitional arrangements introduced by
Article 32. The arrangements under Article 32 viewed syntactically and in its
immediate context are conditional and time-bound and cannot be interpreted
as indefinite.
65. As such, upon the establishment of the Court, Article 32 is no longer enforced,
and thus Article 27 is read without reference to the African Commission.
Accordingly, the Commission cannot in 'good faith' rely upon the provisions
of Article 32 to determine its material jurisdiction under the Maputo Protocol
as the latter should now be read exclusive of the said provision.
b.
ContextuaVsystematic interpretation
66. Two implications necessarily arise from the above interpretation. On the one
hand, silence can be interpreted as prohibitive. This implication relates to the
doctrine of express jurisdiction or powers and the literalist approach to treaty
interpretation. According to this doctrine, "an organization may exercise only
the powers that are given to it by memqer states through a constituent
document" and the exercise of pe>wers outside those expressly provided are
ultra vires 24 • An argument can be Ir1ade that post-transition, by expressly and
exclusively referring to the African Court as the prgan responsible for the
interpretation of the Protocol under Article 27, the Commission is prohibited
from examining violations under the Protocol: In that, if States Party to the
Protocol had intended to grant the Commission indefinite jurisdiction, they
would have included it under Article 27 rather than Article 32 which by its
nature is conditional. On the other hand, silence can be interpreted as
permissive. An argument can also be made that in the absence of an express
prohibition the Protocol implicitly permits the exercise of the Commission's
contentious jurisdiction.
67. This Commission conside~s that the latter interpretation is congruent with the
context, object and purpose of the Maputo Protocol. The Commission is
mindful that ih contrast to other African treaty bodies with human rights
jurisdiction such as the African Court and the ECOWAS Court, its jurisdiction
is not as expansive. The Commission nevertheless considers that its contentious
jurisdiction under the Maputo Protocol is derived principally from the African
Charter, namely Articles 45 read with Article 66, the latter of which as earlier
indicated enables the adoption of special protocols to supplement the
provisions of the African Charter. Considering that protocols simply elaborate
or include new provisions to the parent treaty, a reasonable assumption can be
made that the mandates derived from the parent treaty extend to the Protocol
absent an express prohibition in this regard.
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24
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MR Phooko "No longer in suspense clarifying the human rights jurisdiction of the SA i:Jrri
18(3}PER/ PELJ 531 534 .
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