ECOWAS Court Waits on Council of Head of States for Enforcement of Court’s Judgments

By: Michael Mike

The Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) Court said it is waiting on the Commission’s Council of Head of States to put in place sanctions that would ensure members of the sub regional bloc enforce the judgments of the court.

Many who believe the court has taken giant strides in taking informed decisions on cases brought before it especially in area of violation of human rights in member countries, however lamented that the non-enforcement of the decisions have been the major challenges.

Answering questions from journalists on the sidelines of the Annual Judges Retreat of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) Court on Thursday in Suleja, Niger State, the Chief Registrar of the Court, Chief Registrar of ECOWAS Court, Dr.Yaouza Ouro-Sama said: “Supplementary Act of 2012 have defined legal regime of sanctions for member states that have not been complying with court decisions but as you know within the legal framework of ECOWAS, it is only the council of head of states that takes decisions especially sanctions against member states and we just got an opportunity to present the status of enforcement before council of ministers and we are yet to do a second presentation, in December I believe the council of ministers would take it up to the council of head of states and would take a decision to ensure member states enforce our decisions.”

He argued that the court has been effectively as notable decisions have been made and that the forced.

He said: “Some of the judgments of the court are enforced by the community institutions. It is one thing to pronounce a judgment and another thing to get it enforced.

“We are making a lot of efforts to sensitize member states and community institutions so that the rate of enforcement of court decisions will increase, but I can tell you that within the last two years we have noticed significant increase of the rate of judgments of the court. We believe by continuing in that trend of engaging member states and community institutions we would get most of our decisions enforced.”

The President of the Court, Ricardo Cláudio Monteiro Gonçalves who declared open the Retreat while acknowledging that this is the first Judges’s retreat, after the judicial one organized by the new Management since its election, said the objectives of the retreat is to consider and validate a number of draft texts that are essential to the smooth operation of the Court.

He said: The Honourable Judges will discuss and validate the draft strategy on arbitration, amendment proposals on the Protocols of the Court, the draft Instructions to the Chief Registrar and Practice direction, and finally proposed Policies on contract and Library.”

He called on all participants for an active participation in order to ensure that the sessions are interactive, and asked for the setting up of a Committee saddled with the responsibility of following up on the implementation of recommendations from the Judges’ retreats and subsequent brief the Management periodically.”

ECOWAS Court Waits on Council of Head of States for Enforcement of Court’s Judgments