Abstract:
The birth of the SADC Tribunal marked a period of hope for human rights victims in the SADC. Initially, the Tribunal could hear commercial, labour and human rights law disputes. Individuals who no longer have hope on their national courts, could bring the complaints to the Tribunal. However, a very dramatic change took place following the challenges in the Zimbabwean expropriation of land without compensation. Following the defeat in the land grabs case, the Campbell case, instead of complying with court ruling the Zimbabwean government lobbied other SADC member states to challenge the jurisdiction of the Tribunal. This challenge to the human rights jurisdiction was calculated to render the Tribunal ineffective. The SADC states saw the Tribunal as nothing other than a monster that their sovereignty. Subsequently, the Tribunal was suspended, with the adoption of the new 2014 Protocol to the Tribunal. The new Protocol limits the jurisdiction of the Tribunal to interstate disputes only and excludes the submission of human rights complaints by individuals and entities from the region. This undoubtedly and unjustifiably deprive SADC citizens of their right of access to justice. Not only that this create a gap in the eyes of justice, it also reduces the role of the court as one of the institutions of the SADC. The Constitutional Court of South Africa has ruled that the suspension of the Tribunal and ordered the President of South Africa to withdraw from the new 2014 Protocol. This was followed by the Tanzanian High Court, which left the consideration of the signature to the new Protocol a matter of the Executive. Therefore, this writing make a case for the restoration of the SADC Tribunal. In its advocacy, this study focuses on the role played by regional courts in integration and the need of the Tribunal on human rights natters from individual complaints.
