Legal Practitioners and civil society organisations have publicly condemned the reduction of judges of the ECOWAS Court of Justice from seven to five.
In a paper titled, “Deploying the ECOWAS legal architecture for addressing impunity in West African sub-region,” which was delivered by Femi Falana, he said “it is regrettable the decision of the ECOWAS leadership to reduce the number of judges of the court from seven to five and will soon lead to congestion of cases and undue delay of justice”.
Aligning with Falana’s position, President of the ECOWAS Court of Justice, Justice Troare, supported Falana’s view.
“If with seven, the court is encountering some challenges, what will it do when it is reduced to five?” Troare asked.
He urged the ECOWAS leadership to review the decision, adding that the number of judges should be brought to 15 with each representing their various member states.
Falana expressed dissatisfaction on compliance to rules and regulations amongst member states, saying that “the commitment of the court to fight impunity by compliance with decisions of the court by some of the member states have not been encouraging”.
He noted that Nigeria, Ghana, Sierra Leone and The Gambia are some of the countries that have refused to comply with orders of the court.
He therefore called on the ECOWAS Commission to commence the process of establishing the appellate chamber which he said was approved by the ECOWAS Council of Ministers at its 56th ordinary session in Abuja.
