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The African Court of Justice Evaluation
It is missing the following:
 * The full history of the establishment of the court
 * Composition, that is who are the  judges, president, vice president and chambers etc
 * Jurisdiction and Powers are not mentioned
 * Criticisms of the court are not mentioned
 * Not enough references are citied
 * Basically l want to add more flesh to the article and give a more just and accurate account of the African Court of justice.

History
The African Court of Justice is a continental court established by African Countries to Ensure protection of Human Rights and people’s Rights of Article 1 of the Protocol to the African Charter on Human and People’s Rights in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso in June 1998. Talks about such a Court date back to 1961, during the meeting of the African Jurists in Lagos, Nigeria. It was in 1995 after the issue of establishing a court had not been spoken about much, that a draft document on an African Human Rights Court was produced by a meeting of experts in Cape Town, South Africa.Following that discussion, the Adoption of the Protocol to the African Charter. It took four years to arrive at a common position, a result of intense negotiations and compromise as to what the court would be about and how it will be run. This protocol came into force on January 25th 2004 and the court as properly established with one agreement. It has 30 State Parties and of the 30 only 8 as of present day made the declaration recognising the competence of the Court to receive cases from the NGOs and individuals. These eight states include Benin, Cote d’Ivoire, Ghana, Mali, Malawi, Tanzania, Burkina Faso and Representatives of Tunisia. While speaking about this court it is very necessary to highlight and trace the evolution of the first continental inter-governmental political organisation, the OAU now the AU. It was because of the promise of the OAU to the AU with regard to protection of human rights in Africa that we see the coming of the African Court of Justice and Human Rights.This promise to come at a time when Africa was just coming from being decolonised and its primary focus was unifying independent states and African development. The states were less concerned about human rights causes of their neighbours because during that time they thought that they would be interfering with state sovereignty.What was most important at that time was consilidation of power of the then colonised African States. Dictators emerged and minority and indigenous people were left on the often on the sidelines of the legal and policy frameworks of state structures because they lacked enough representation a decision-making levels.(George Mukundi Wachira, African Court on Human and People's rights, 2008)It was amidst all these human right violations that the African Court came into full force and in 2007, out of the possible 53 member states of the AU, 24 states signed and ratified  the Protocol in recognition of the Court.

The court was established as a result of human right violations that had been taking place on the African Continent, with minorities and indigenous people's particularly affected.The African Court recognises the African Commission as the main human rights monitoring body on the continent ever since is establishment. The two work hand in hand as the African Court was established to complement the protective mandate of the African Commission bu issuing binding decisions and ordering specific remedies.(George Mukundi Wachira, African Court on Human and People's rights, 2008). The court was and is still meant to protect and promote the human rights of the most marginalised and excluded groups such as the minority peoples in Africa, hence the institution was established to redress the human rights violations they face.

Overview
The African Court of Justice and Human Rights is the main judicial organ of the African Union. The Court is constituted and functions in accordance with the provisions of the present Statute.

The court seeks to exercise jurisdiction in all cases and disputes brought before it concerning the interpretation and application of the Charter, whilst doing this the protocol and any other relevant instrument relating to human rights ratified by the States concerned is also managed by the court.It also seeks to collaborate with sub-regional and national judicial bodies to enhance the protection of human rights on the continent of Africa. The court as well enhances the participation of the African People in the work of the Court by trying to get most African states to be involved and ensuring that human rights are observed. The court also enhances the capacity of the Registry of the Court to be able to fulfill its mandate and enhances working relationship between the Court and the African Commission.(The mandate which reinforces the observation of the African Commission on Human and People's Rights and thereby working on implementing the Charter.

Judges
The Court consists of sixteen (16) Judges who are nationals of State Parties. Upon recommendation of the Court, the Assembly, may review the number of the judges. Of the 16 judges, the court is not allowed to have more than one judge from one member state. Each geographical region of the Continent, as determined by the Decisions of the Assembly shall, where possible, be represented by three (3) Judges except the Western Region which shall have four (4) Judges. The judges through the court have jurisdiction over all the disputes and cases submitted to it concerning the interpretation and application of the African Charter on Human and People’s rights. Specifically the court has two types of jurisdiction : contentious and advisory. The first judges of the court were elected in January 2006 in Khartoum, Sudan. The judges are usually on six year terms but some after six years can have their terms renewed and others can even have their positions upgraded to post of Presidents or Vice Presidents. The Court shall be composed of impartial and independent Judges elected from among persons of high moral character, who possess the qualifications required in their respective countries for appointment to the highest judicial offices, of recognised competence and experience in international law and /or, human rights law. Through the Protocol of the African Charter, the judges get to work on cases that are submitted by the following groups: The African Commission, the state party that has lodged a complaint at the African Commission, the State Party against which the complaint has been lodged at the African Commission, the State party whose citizen is a victim of a human rights violation and African intergovernmental organisations. In essence besides Mali and Burkina Faso, no other African state can take cases directly to the court unless they are going through the African Commission.

President
Justice Sylvain Ore from Cote d'Ivoire is the current President of the court and the Vice President is Justice Ben Kioko from Kenya. The President and Vice-President will only be elected by and from the judges for a three year term which can only be renewed once. The President presides over all sessions of the full court and, in the event that he is not there, the Vice-President does it in his place. The President promotes the activities and administration of the court and as well appoints and dismisses judges following the court procedure that is stipulated.

Jurisdiction and Powers
The Court shall have jurisdiction over all cases and all legal disputes submitted to it in accordance with the present Statute which relate to the following: ''We cannot however talk about the Court's Jurisdictions without mentioning its relationship with the African Commission
 * Jurisdiction to deal with all cases and disputes submitted to it regarding the interpretation and application of the charter, the Protocol and any other relevant human rights instrument ratified by concerned States.( Contentious Jurisdiction). This focuses on Rights of women in Africa, Rights and welfare of the child and any other legal instrument relating to human rights.
 * May upon request provide an opinion on any legal matter relating to the Charter.( Advisory Jurisdiction)
 * It asses the implications of extending the jurisdiction of the Court on Human Rights to try international crimes such as genocide and crimes against humanity.
 * The Court has the responsibility to interpret application or validity of other Union Treaties and all subsidiary legal instruments adopted within the framework of the Union or the Organisation of African Unity
 * The court focuses on any question or critique of international law in the African Continent
 * All acts, decisions, regulations and directives of the organs of the Union
 * All matters specifically provided for in any other agreements that State Parties may conclude among themselves, or with the Union and which confer jurisdiction on the Court
 * The existence of any fact which, if established, would constitute a breach of an obligation owed to a State Party or to the Union;
 * The nature or extent of the reparation to be made for the breach of an international obligation.

Overlaps of jurisdiction
 * The court's jurisdiction overlaps to some parts of Africa which include: some sub-regional courts, such as: Court of Justice of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), the East African Court of Justice (EACJ), and the Tribunal of the Southern African Development Community (SADC)

Working Languages
The working languages for the court are any of the working languages for the AU. These languages include: French, Arabic, Portuguese and English mainly. The court would usually require that most of its workers speak English but any of the four stated languages would still be alright.

Criticism
The African Court of Justice faces a lot of criticism as to whether it has brought some kind of justice or has done nothing at all. In a report by the Minority Rights Group International, a scholar, George Mukundi Wachira comments in 2008 that it has been ten years and still there is no justice. Wachira argues that the court takes too long to deliberate on its cases, in the time of his writing (2008) the court had not yet made its decision for its first case from 2004. At the moment as reported by reports and the court itself, 78% of cases are still pending. From these cases there are cases from as early as 2014 which have not yet received a verdict. Wachira argues that because of the delay of processes, individuals across the continent continue to suffer human rights violations and the situation is more precarious for indigenous and minority peoples, who are often additionally excluded in fact and law from accessing domestic human rights protection mechanisms. Wachira also points out there is no harmony between the African Court and the African Commission, which he feels should work together as a way to confer and consult each other with a view to resolving the issue of complementarity and importantly, the issue of individuals and NGOs having access to the African Court. In one of his critiques, Wachira says that the African Court of Justice is not being impartial in most of its dealings and this is as a result of lack of independence from political interference from the AU or individual member states.

Professor Barney Pityana as well critiques the court saying, " It is unfortuanate that judges of the African Court on Human and People's Rights and indeed the court itself has not provided much information, if any, to the public it is expected to serve on progress made, which is a cause for concern. It is essential that the African Court on Human and People's Rights provides sufficient information on its progress if it hopes to receive requisite support and cases from individuals and the peoples it is created to protect.

The Minority Rights Group International also puts out an argument that the judges are not applying standard international and regional human rights norms, in particular the standards and comparative jurisprudence on the rights of minorities and indigenous peoples. It went on to argue that states are not taking the decisions, no matter how small, of the African Court seriously because the Court is not exercising its power well enough. The Court has failed to have regular briefings of the Executive Council of the AU on states that may have been failing to take heed of the African Court's decisions.