Three New Judges Elected to the African Court on Human and Peoples' Rights; VP Justice Ben Kioko Re-elected for Second Term

13 July 2018 · AfricanLII

PRESS RELEASE

Arusha, 13 July 2018: The just-ended 31^st African Union (AU) Heads of State and Government Ordinary Session in Nouakchott, Mauritania, has appointed three Judges as members of the African Court and re-appointed one Judge to serve for a final six year term.

The three newly elected Judges are: Hon Imani Aboud from Tanzania; Hon Stella Isibhakhomen Anukam from Nigeria and Hon Blaise Tchikaye from Congo.

Hon Justice Ben Kioko from Kenya, the current Vice President of the African Court, was re-appointed for a second term of six years.

The newly elected Justices are replacing Hon Justice Gérald Niyungeko from Burundi and Hon Justice El Hadji Guissé from Senegal, who both retired last month after serving two terms of six years each, and Hon Justice Solomy Balungi Bossa from Uganda who resigned in February 2018 to take up a position as Judge of the International Criminal Court in The Hague, Netherlands.

Hon Justice Aboud is the Judge In-charge of the Tanzania’s High Court, Tanga, Tanzania; Hon Justice Anukam is the Director of International and Comparative Law Department in the Federal Ministry of Justice in Abuja, Nigeria; and Hon Blaise Tchikaya is a Professor of International Public Law at University of Paris, France.

The newly elected Judges will be sworn-in on 27 August 2018 at the commencement of the 50^th Ordinary Session in Arusha, Tanzania, the seat of the Court.

The President of the Court, Hon Justice Sylvain Oré, has warmly welcomed the election of the new Judges, and re-election of Justice Kioko, and wished them every success in pursuit of the common objective of the rule of law and African Justice.

NOTES FOR EDITORS:

The Court is composed of eleven Judges, nationals of Member States of the African Union elected in their individual capacity.
The Court meets four times a year in Ordinary Sessions and may hold Extra-Ordinary Sessions.

Further information on the Court can be obtained from the Court’s website at www.african-court.org

For more comments:

Dr Robert Eno, Registrar

Email:Robert.Eno@african-court.org and africancourtmedia@african-court.org

Tel: +255 2970430; 02970431; 02970432; 02970433; 02970434; 02970435

Follow us on Twitter: @court_afchpr

AfricanLII

About the author

Recent articles by AfricanLII

Inaugural meeting and conference of African Network of Judicial Trainers

24 January 2024
AfricanLII

The work of the Judicial Institute for Africa (Jifa) and the African Legal Information Institute (AfricanLII) was showcased at this week’s inaugural three-day AGM and conference of the African Network of Judicial Trainers (ANJT), held in Zanzibar. A number of important projects were launched or unveiled at the event, including an inaugural project to draw up a shared ethics manual on judicial training for trainers.

Pocket Law: Legal Information In Your Pocket

23 January 2023
AfricanLII

Do your users struggle to connect to the Internet? Pocket Law lets you search for cases and legislation off-line. It is a USB stick loaded with an LII website, which works off-line and updates with new content once users are in Internet coverage.

Pocket Law

23 January 2023
AfricanLII

The Community Land Act in Kenya Opportunities and Challenges for Communities

15 December 2021
AfricanLII

Kenya is the most recent African state to acknowledge customary tenure as producing lawful property rights, not merely rights of occupation and use on government or public lands. This paper researches this new legal environment. This promises land security for 6 to 10 million Kenyans, most of who are members of pastoral or other poorer rural communities. Analysis is prefaced with substantial background on legal trends continentally, but the focus is on Kenya’s Community Land Act, 2016, as the framework through which customary holdings are to be identified and registered. A main conclusion is that while Kenya’s law is positive and even cutting-edge in respects, legal loopholes place communities at risk of their lands not being as secure as promised ahead of formalization, and at risk of losing some of their most valuable lands during the formalization process. This is mainly due to overlapping claims by the national and local government authorities. Political will to apply the law is also weak. The truism that the law is never enough on its own to secure social change is illustrated. With or without legal protection, the assistance of non-state actors will be needed to help communities secure their lands under formal collective entitlements. The need for judicial interpretation of disputed legal provisions may also be required to ensure new constitutional principles are delivered.

Kenya and Botswana: why were their recent sodomy judgments so different?

2 March 2020
AfricanLII

In this post from the website of the International Association of Constitutional Law , blogger Aditendra Singh of the National Law University, Delhi, compares two similar cases from Kenya and Botswana. He poses the question: What made the courts adjudicate the matters so differently?