Mark Pritchard – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Mark Pritchard on 2015-10-21.

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, if he will discuss with his (a) EU and (b) African Union counterparts the creation of an International Constitutional Court to be used for settling disputes concerning (i) presidential term limits and (ii) constitutional matters that may give rise to civil or military conflicts.

James Duddridge

We are not aware of any discussions with or between African Union or EU counterparts about an International Constitutional Court. The “Africa Court of Human and People’s Rights (ACHPR)” based in Arusha already has a mandate to make judgements on African Union Member States’ compliance with the African Charter on Human and People’s Rights. It is for national constitutional courts first to make judgements on constitutional affairs in their own countries, in line with the principle of subsidiarity, though the ACHPR will also form judgements where requested by African Union Member States, as recently happened in the case of Burundi.