00010 s
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And that the Court not only inserted its decision to render the judgment in default
in the chapter on Proceedings before the Court, but also did not give any legal
basis to this decision to render the judgment in default without the application of
the other party, contented with the declaration in paragraph 15(iii), Summary of the
proceedings before the Court that, "On 12 October 2018, the Registry notified the
Respondent State that at its 50th Ordinary Session, the Court decided to grant the
latter a final 45 days extension and that, after that deadline, it would enter a ruling
in default in accordance with Rule 55 of its Rules in the interest of justice..."
and concluding in paragraph 17 on the same grounds that, "Consequenfly, the
Court will enter a judgment in default in the interest of justice and in conformity with
Rule 55 of the Rules".
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No reference to the basis of this "interest of justice" or how rendering a judgement
in default was fundamental to the Court, especially since such judgements are not
subject to opposition or appeal, and how such a decision taken on the basis of its
discretionary power could refer to Rule 55 of the Rules, which does not apply to
discretion.
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Moreover, reference to the lngabiré Judgement is in no way a basis for the decision
in default because in that Judgement, at no point in the body of the Judgement or
in its operative part is there mention of a judgement in default, as no party had
requested for it and the chapter 17 cited in this reference states as follows.
"Consequently, in the interest of justice, the Court will examine the instant brief for
reparation in the absence of any response from the Respondent State".
B- To render a judgement in the absence of the Respondent is in no way the legal
definition of default which, under the provisions of the aforementioned Rule 55,
meets conditions which must be controlled by the Court.
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lt is clear and, as mentioned above, that the default judgement must meet certain
conditions and that the Court is under the obligation to give reasons for any
decision it makes, even more so when it is at variance with the clear provisions
of one of the Rules.
By ruling in this way, the Court breached the provisions of Article 28(6) of the
Protocol which obliges it to give reasons for its judgements.
10-ln comparative Iaw, there is a wealth of case law supporting this reasoning, such
as the Judgement of 30 November 1 987, H. v. Belgium, where the European Court
of Human Rights recognised, for the first time, the right to give reasons in judicial
decisions in these terms: "...this very lack of precision made it all the more
necessary to give sufficient reasons for the two impugned decisions on the issue
in question. Yet in the event the decisions merely noted that there were no such
circumstances, without explaining why the circumstances relied on by the applicant
were not to be regarded as exceptional" (§53) and in the Judgement of 16
December 1992, Hadjianasfassiou v. Greece, the Court noted that "the obligation
to state reasons constitutes a minimum guarantee which is limited to the
.,