Promote African dev’t with your jurisprudence, Osinbajo tells African Court

Vice President Yemi Osinbajo has called on the African Court of Human and People’s Rights to use its jurisprudence to advance development, poverty eradication and democracy in Africa. 

The vice president was speaking at the opening of the 2022 legal year of the court in Arusha, Tanzania, with theme, ‘The African Court and the Africa We Want’.

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“The African Court and its sister institutions may need to stress these issues in their future jurisprudence on the right to development. 

“Helping poor nations to resolve their economic and social crises will also prevent or de-escalate internal conflicts. And if there is a right to development, Africans should be assured of the full enjoyment of the substantive guarantee that it embodies,” he said.

For the effective enforcement of decisions of the court, in line with the Ouagadougou Protocol, Osinbajo recommended that it should send its rulings to supreme courts of member states while also charging the African Court, African Commission and African Committee to cooperate in the spirit of complementarity.

Osinbajo expressed worry that the initial enthusiasm by member states for the Ouagadougou Protocol has dropped, especially with some withdrawals from the Article 34(6) Declaration, which allows access to individuals and non-governmental organisations to bring cases against them before the court. 

“We must find some common grounds as we move forward. There might be a need for further interaction between the court and member states and civil society on how to work through these issues. 

“The general reluctance of states to concede sovereignty is not peculiar to the African states, but it is possible for us to be more creative about complementarity for instance.

“I make these submissions recognizing very clearly that going by the present constitutive documents of the courts and the AU Charter, we are not in a position to effect what I am proposing but I believe by way of amendments, we may be able to at least, experiment with some thinking out of the box on complementarity,” he said.

The vice president also called on African countries to speak in one voice over the Paris Agreement on Climate Change and the COP 26 especially the transition to net-zero by 2060 with LPG replacing heavy pollutants such as firewood and kerosene for cooking.