ECOWAS court’s jurisdiction and the argument of sovereignty: an evaluation of an impeachment Debacle in Liberia
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Date
2023
Authors
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Publisher
University of the Western Cape
Abstract
The need for a just and orderly society is the essence of retributive justice in domestic courts. Globalisation has left an immense mark on the development of both domestic and international laws. Rule of Law was largely associated with justice from the domestic perspective. Beyond the nation state, the concept of international rule of law now adds a new layer of justice at regional and global levels. What has emerged is a system of accountability to balance individual rights against state actions. On the other hand, state parties have often contested supranational courts’ authority in domestic constitutional matters that border on states’ sovereignty. As a result, the link between supranational courts’ jurisdiction and state sovereignty has become blurred, complex, and controversial. In nearly all international litigation, the world has seen varying analyses with respect to the nexus between the exercise of jurisdiction by supranational courts over states in constitutional matters and the constitutional duties of states’ judiciaries to serve as the final arbiters of their constitutions. In the wake of these controversies, the view is popularly held that external interference in the affairs of states as they exercise their constitutional duties amounts to an assault on their sovereignty. The exact opposite of that argument says that a state has accepted to lower its sovereignty to a supranational body by the very fact that it contracted to become a party to a treaty body. The debates even become complex where states become subject to enforcement against themselves owing to the outcome of supranational rulings. Where these rulings are popularly resisted, they simply become historical documents relegated to shelves for academic purposes. The purpose of this study is to assess whether the Economic Community of West African States Community Court of Justice (ECCJ) is justified in the exercise of jurisdiction over complaints of human rights violations that grow out of a state’s exercise of its constitutional duties. The study considers the scenario of Justice Kabineh Mohammed Ja’neh, an impeached Associate Justice of Liberia
Description
Magister Legum - LLM
Keywords
Jurisdiction, Sovereignty, Impeachment, Human Rights, Regional Integration