By Francis Ameyibor
Tema, March. 02, GNA – The African Committee of Experts on the Rights and Welfare of the Child has commended the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights for its tremendous work in ensuring upholding of rights.
The African Committee of Experts also commended the organs of the African Union, the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights, the Regional Economic Communities, and the Member States.
It also applauded the various organisations and institutions for their tireless efforts in the promotion and protection of human and peoples’ rights in Africa in general and the rights of the child.
Mr Theophane Nikyema, a member of the African Committee of Experts and Special Rapporteur on Child Justice, made the commendation on behalf of the Committee at the opening of the 2023 African Court Judicial Year in Arusha, Tanzania, which has been made available to the Ghana News Agency in Tema.
He said the African Committee of Experts remained firmly committed to working more closely with the African Court and the African Commission on Human and Peoples Rights to consolidate complementarity and harmonise jurisprudences among the three human rights organs of the African Union.
Speaking on the 2023 Judicial Year theme: “Integrating the jurisprudence of regional and international human rights mechanisms into national systems,” Mr Nikyema noted that challenges the AU human rights organs to do more to reaffirm their relevance.
He said it also resonated with the priorities of the AU agenda and confirmed the African Court’s firm commitment to the objectives and principles set out in the AU Constitutive Act and Agenda 2063, in the quest for a continent imbued with a universal culture of respect for human rights, justice and the rule of law.
Mr Nikyema noted also that African Court 2023 Judicial Year theme revitalized the regional integration process undertaken since 2015 by the African Union and offered an opportunity for national systems to better know the significant jurisprudential experience of African and sub-regional jurisdictions.
He said to foster greater continental judicial integration, greater synergy between the AU’s three human rights organs was required.
He said the implementation of the African Committee of Expert’s decisions depended on the effectiveness of its collaboration not only with the African Court, and the Commission but also with other AU structures and organs.
Professor Emeritus Issa G. Shivji, School of Law University of Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, said the concept of Peoples’ Rights was the most innovative part of the African Charter unlike many other regional human rights instruments; yet it had not received sufficient attention from academics and regional human rights bodies, particularly in recent decades.
Prof. Shivji explained that the Charter took an integral view of the three generations of rights; civil and political rights; social, economic, and cultural rights; and collective rights.
Speaking on the topic: “The Jurisprudence behind the Right to Self-determination and Right to Development in the African Charter for Human and Peoples Rights,” he said, neither the African Court nor the East African Court of Justice had drawn on the rich jurisprudence developed by the African Commission on collective rights.
Prof. Shivji noted that the right of peoples to self-determination and right to development and customary property rights to ancestral lands and destruction of cultural and religious sites
GNA