AfCHPR Concludes Ordinary Session

The African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights (AfCHPR) has concluded its 50^th ordinary session in Arusha, Tanzania with the swearing in of three new judges elected during the 31^st African Union Heads of State Summit in Nouakchott, Mauritania.

According to a release from the Court at its headquarters in Arusha, the ceremony was graced by the vice president of the United Republic of Tanzania, H.E. Samia Hassan Suluhu.

The release says the three newly elected judges include Imani Aboud from Tanzania; Stella Isibhakhomen Anukam of Nigeria and Blaise Tchikaye from Congo. The Judges following their induction among other things started with the examination of over ten applications currently before the Court for the next four-week session which stretches up to September 21, 2018.

The release went on indicate that the AfCHPR will also convene her ‘9^th Extra-Ordinary Session’ to be held from 24 to 28 September, 2018.

The newly elected Justices are coming in as replacement for Justice Gérald Niyungeko of Burundi and Justice El Hadji Guissé, native of Senegal who both have retired after serving two terms each, and Justice Solomy Balungi Bossa from Uganda, who resigned in February, 2018 to take up a new position as Judge of the International Criminal Court in The Hague, Netherlands.

Justice Aboud is Judge of the High Court in Dares Salaam, Tanzania; Justice Anukam, Director of International and Comparative Law Department in the Federal Ministry of Justice in Abuja, Nigeria and Blaise Tchikaya is a professor of International Public Law at the University of Paris, France.

The Court is composed of eleven Judges, nationals of member states of the African Union elected in their individual capacity.  The Court meets four times a year in ordinary sessions and may hold extra-ordinary sessions. As of July 1, 2018, the Court had received one hundred and eighty (180) applications and has finalized forty-five, the release concluded.