Every so often, a country does something quietly important, something that will matter far more in years to come than it appears to on the day. Sierra Leone did that this week. Parliament has ratified the Protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights on the Establishment of the African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights. In plain terms, we are on our way to becoming a full member of the continent’s highest human rights court. Sierraeye commends the government, and in particular the Learned Attorney-General and Minister of Justice, Alpha Sesay, for steering us to this point.

It is worth pausing to understand what we have joined. The African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights sits in Arusha, Tanzania. It was created by a protocol adopted in Ouagadougou in 1998, and it began its work in 2006. This year, the Court marks its twentieth anniversary, two decades of hearing cases in which ordinary Africans have stood against their own governments and, in many instances, won. The Court works alongside the older African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights, but with one decisive difference. The Commission makes recommendations. The Court delivers judgments that bind. When the Court finds that a state has violated the rights of its people, that finding carries the full weight of a legal ruling, not merely the softer force of an opinion.

For a long time, Sierra Leone stood outside this arrangement. We had signed the African Charter, and we speak often of human rights, but we had not taken the step of placing ourselves under the authority of the continent’s binding human rights court. That gap now closes. It matters for several reasons.

First, it is a statement of confidence. A government that submits itself to an external court is a government willing to be judged. Not every state is prepared to do this. Of the fifty-five members of the African Union, only around thirty have ratified this Protocol. By joining that group, Sierra Leone signals that it does not fear scrutiny of how it treats its own citizens. That is the mark of a maturing democracy, and it stands in welcome contrast to those who treat human rights as a matter for speeches rather than for courts.

Second, it strengthens the hand of the ordinary citizen. Rights that cannot be enforced are little more than promises. Domestic courts remain, as they should, the first place a Sierra Leonean turns for justice. But where the domestic system falls short, membership of the African Court offers a further avenue, a continental forum in which a wrong may still be righted. The very existence of that forum has a disciplining effect. Governments across Africa have learned to weigh their conduct against the knowledge that Arusha is watching.

Third, it places us in good company and in the current of history. To ratify in the very year the Court celebrates twenty years of service is fitting. It ties our small step to a larger continental story, one in which Africa builds its own institutions to hold African governments to African commitments. This is pan-African solidarity in its most practical form. It is not a slogan. It is a court, a docket, and a body of judgments that belong to us all.

None of this is to pretend that ratification alone completes the journey. It does not, and honesty requires that we say so. Ratifying the Protocol makes Sierra Leone a state party, which means the Court may hear cases brought against us by the African Commission, by other member states, or by African organisations. But for our own citizens and civil society organisations to take a case directly to the Court, a further step is needed. The Protocol contains a separate declaration, known as the Article 34(6) declaration, by which a state opens its doors to complaints lodged directly by individuals and non-governmental organisations. Only a small number of African states have made that declaration. Without it, a Sierra Leonean seeking the Court must still travel the longer road through the Commission.

So, our message to the government is one of praise joined to encouragement. Ratification is the right decision, taken at the right moment, and it deserves recognition. The natural next step is to make the Article 34(6) declaration so that the door we have opened swings fully open, and the protection of the Court reaches directly into the hands of the very people it is meant to serve. A right of access that runs only through intermediaries is a lesser right than one a citizen may claim for herself.

For today, however, credit belongs where it is due. Sierra Leone has chosen to be counted among the African states willing to be held to account. In a region where too many governments guard themselves against judgment, ours has stepped forward to invite it. That is leadership, and it deserves to be named as such. We congratulate the Attorney-General, we congratulate Parliament, and we look forward to the day, we hope not far off, when every Sierra Leonean knows that the doors of the African Court stand open to them.

Sierraeye Editorial