ECOWAS Court To Strengthens Measures To Improve Enforcement Of Its Decisions

The ECOWAS Community Court of Justice is collaborating with stakeholders to obey or enforce the judgment of the court by members states in the region and promote human rights and humanitarian law. According to a statement from the court on Monday, ECOWAS has developed a two-year project in collaboration with the Pan African Lawyer’s Union (PALU) and the Raoul Wallenberg Institute in Sweden. The project, aimed at developing strategies to improve the implementation of the court’s decisions, would be implemented from 2018 till 2020. The court further stated that stakeholders reviewed the status of the project at a recent two-day regional meeting with the theme “Tracking the Status of Implementation of Decisions of the EECJ”. Vice President of the court, Justice Yussif Kaba who also received a joint delegation from PALU and Raoul Wallenberg, following the meeting, further assured of the court’s readiness address the issue of non-implementation of its decisions. Kaba stated that the project should help increase the number of decisions enforced by member states and sustain the credibility of the court. The court, at different fora, had reiterated the non-compliance by member states to implement its decisions. Kaba stated that records showed that only 35 out of the 64 decisions of the court had been enforced by member states “due to a variety of reasons”. “Under Article 24 of the court as amended, member states were assigned the responsibility for executing judgements of the court. “This is in accordance with their Rules of Civil Procedure and consequently required to determine the competent national authority for the purpose of receipt and processing of executions and to notify the court.”]]>