By Francis Ameyibor
Tema, Nov. 5, GNA – The African Court of Human and People’s Rights has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with the Federal Supreme Court of Ethiopia to strengthen and expand the frontiers of judicial jurisprudence in Africa.
The MOU was signed by Lady Justice Imani Daud Aboud, President of the African Court, and Justice Meaza Ashenafi, President of the Federal Supreme Court of Ethiopia, and witnessed by the African Court Vice President as well as other Judges of the two courts.
Lady Justice Ashenafi explained in a statement made available to the Ghana News Agency that the MOU signified the start of something new for the future of the two courts and beyond.
She said the Federal Courts’ five years strategic plan included fostering excellence in strategic partnerships with national and international stakeholders as one of the core focal areas.
“As such, this MoU is intended to initiate engagement with the African court.
With this MoU, we hope to enhance our cooperation among our regional and national judicial organs.
“We hope this will contribute towards achieving excellence in judicial services, especially through research, publications, training, national and international conferences, workshops, experience sharing, and exchange programmes,” she said.
Lady Justice Ashenafi stressed that the MOU would also benefit the African Court to be able to work closely with its partner on areas of common interest such as capacity building, improving service delivery of courts and access to justice for the people.
“As this is the first-ever MOU that the African Court will be signing with a national judicial organ of a sovereign country in Africa, it will certainly serve as an inspiration for other courts to take a similar step.
“It is important for national courts to open up their judiciaries for regional collaboration. This collaboration will be further enhanced with the future ratification of the protocol to the African Charter by Ethiopia.
Lady Justice Aboud, on her part, reiterated that all stakeholders have a role to play in ensuring that the African Court has a future in protecting and enforcing human rights on the continent.
She said mobilizing existing networks of stakeholders will be essential to supporting the African Court in the future, but also to hold it to account to the people.
Lady Justice Aboud said the complementarity between the African Court and African Commission and other regional and national courts must be strengthened, and the subsidiarity of the African Court vis-à-vis national courts needs to be better explained.
GNA