The court’s official languages are English, French, Portuguese and Arabic which are spoken in the 54 African countries.
“This should happen in 90 days, because we intend to make use of ICT,” the judge, with immense wealth of experience said, citing Singapore where they visited on a bench-marking tour.
“We want to reach a point where e-filing of cases is enabled as well as archiving, take the example of Singapore and Turkey,” he said.
Asked about the major challenges facing the court, Justice Kioko cited funding and the fact that all the eleven judges are part-time as well as lack of cooperation by some member states.
The African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights is a continental court established by African countries to ensure protection of human and peoples’ rights in Africa.
It complements and reinforces the functions of the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights.
The Court was established by virtue of Article 1 of the Protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights on the Establishment of an African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights, (the Protocol) which was adopted by Member States of the then Organization of African Unity (OAU) in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso, in June 1998. The Protocol came into force on 25 January 2004 after it was ratified by more than 15 countries.
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