ECOWAS Court restates need to enforce its decisions
NAN-H-82
Decisions
By Temitope Ponle
Nasarawa (Nasarawa State), July 5, 2017 (NAN) The Community Court of Justice, ECOWAS, has reiterated the need for member states to set up national authorities responsible for enforcing its decisions.
President of the court, Justice Jerome Traore made the call at the ongoing ninth judicial retreat of the court in Nasarawa, Nasarawa State on Wednesday.
Traore said that the enforcement of the court’s decisions by member states remained a challenge as only Nigeria, Mali, Burkina Faso and Guinea had appointed national authorities to ensure enforcement of the court’s decisions.
“The court delivers judgment and according to our regulations, it is the member states who should appoint a national authority to execute the decisions delivered by the Court of Justice.
“This is one of the challenges the court is facing because we are expecting all member states to appoint the authorities in charge of enforcing the decisions of the court but so far only four member states have done so.
“It is true that the court cannot exercise a sort of force to bring member states to appoint national authorities.
“During our sensitisation missions we keep reminding them that they have this obligation since they agreed to establish a court of justice,’’ he said.
The court’s president also said that there was a provision to address refusal of member states to enforce the decisions of the court.
“In case a country refuses to fulfil this obligation, there is a way out; and that is, any citizen in this situation can address their application to the president of the commission, which would be addressed to the Council of Ministers and then to the Heads of States.
Mr Tony Anene-Maidoh, Chief Registrar of the court, however, explained that member states did not comply with the mechanism for implementation of the court’s judgment “which are binding”.
Anene-Maidoh also said it was difficult to give statistics on the number of judgments enforced by member states that had appointed national authorities.
“It is difficult for us to give these statistics because it is the national authorities that are supposed to give us information regarding the level of enforcement and or compliance.
“But since most of them have not appointed the competent national authorities; and even the ones that have been appointed, like Nigeria, have not even given us feedback on the level of implementation.
He reiterated that the court would continue to sensitise member states to the importance of doing the needful to implement the court’s judgments and promote the rule of law. (NAN)
TOP/DOR/AFA
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Edited by Nyisom Dore/Felix Ajide