Malabo, Equatorial Guinea (PANA) – African leaders who met at their 23rd ordinary summit have approved a Protocol to create the African Court of Justice and Human and Peoples Rights to try 14 international crimes including genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes, piracy, corruption, mercenaries, money laundering and unconstitutional changes of government.
The Summit also agreed to extend the jurisdiction of the Court to cover other crimes in future, as reflected by the dynamics of international law.
The agreement was reached through an amendment to the protocol that created the African Court of Justice and Human Rights.
The controversial amendment provides immunity from prosecution to sitting African heads of state and senior government officials.
The new amendment was reworded to read: “No charges shall be commenced or continued before the Court against any serving African Union Head of State or Government, or anybody acting or entitled to act in such capacity, or other senior state official based on their functions, during their tenure of office.”
The decision was reached despite objections by some delegates who insisted that the description of “senior state officials” was too sweeping and vague.
The ministers of justice had earlier agreed to let the court determine which senior state officials would be exempt from prosecution.
AU Chairman Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz, who is also the President of Mauritania, said the decision to create the African Court was part of the search for the new vision in Africa to achieve stability.
“We want justice and equality, part of the vision of an Africa that wins. We have agreed to mobilise around our development agenda. The objectives we have adopted will increase our efforts to improve our parliament and the court,” President Ould Abdel Aziz said at the close of the 26-27 June Summit.
The Court will be led by a President and a Vice President elected by judges. It will have offices of the Prosecutor, who has powers to initiate investigations and seek the intervention of the Pre-Trial Chamber.
The African Court, is however, granted only complimentary jurisdiction, meaning it would not take cases until national or regional courts which have the first original jurisdiction fail.
Further amendments to the Protocol called for the inclusion of new crimes, including human trafficking, hazardous wastes dumping, illicit exploitation of natural resources and the crime of aggression, one of the crimes recently added to the International Criminal Court (ICC) list of crimes.
The current protocol will complement national, regional and continental bodies in preventing serious and massive violations of human and people’s rights in keeping with article 58 of the charter and ensuring accountability for them wherever they occur.
Crime of genocide, including killing members of a group, causing serious bodily harm, forcible transfer of children of an ethnic group to another, rape and preventing birth within an ethnic group will be tried as genocide under the draft protocol, which must wait for 15 state signatories to come into force.
The Court has been mandated to act upon unconstitutional changes of government, which will now include change of electoral laws at least six months before an election without full agreement of all political actors and the refusal to relinquish power by an incumbent president after losing an election.
The Court will have three sections, a general affairs section, a human rights section and the International Criminal Law section.
The Judges of the Court will serve on part-time basis except the Court President and the Vice President.
Apart from the Prosecutor, the Court will also have the office of the Defence Office to provide legal assistance to the accused. This office will be headed by the Principal Defender.
The judges’ term of office would be nine years non-renewable.
