The Community Court of Justice, ECOWAS, is set to celebrate 20 years of its existence with a review of Member-States obligations as well as adherence to rulings of the Court.
This is contained in the programme of events made available to newsmen by the Court.
The conference which opens in Lome, Republic of Togo on Sunday, would feature President Nana Akufo-Addo of Ghana, who is also Chairman of ECOWAS Authority of Heads of State, President of Togo Faure Gnassingbe and the President of ECOWAS Jean Claude Brou.
Speaker of the ECOWAS Parliament Hon. Sidie Mohamed Tunis, prominent Nigerian legal luminary Femi Falana as well as Justices of the Sub-regional Court would also attend the event hosted by President of the Court, Justice Edward Asante.
The conference which would consider the future prospects of the Court would also deliberate the mandate of the court, its strengths and weaknesses as well as the ECOWAS Human Rights Regime.
The role of the Community Court in the integration process would also be up for deliberation.
According to the programme, a cardinal aspect of the deliberations will be ‘how to hold member states accountable for their treaty obligations and failure by some to meet their obligations to ECOWAS.
The conference would also seek to clearly differentiate the roles of the Community Court and those of national courts in member states to avoid conflicts.
“Coming on the heels of this is the quest to address the challenges with enforcement mechanism of the community court, monitoring such executions as well as the role of national courts and the ECOWAS Commission.
“The week-long conference will also seek the best approach to settlements in cases of human rights violations in Member-states and ultimately reposition the court for better performance.”
NAN reports that the conference will bring together policy makers, legal experts and other stakeholders from across West Africa as participants. (NAN)
