SUBSTANCE
Fair trial /right to have one’s cause heard – article 7
Undue delay in hearing claim for damages
In Zongo the victims’ next of kin submitted a claim for damages on 6 January 1999 but the
claim was only heard in May 2006. ’Diligence would certainly have required that they be
heard at the early stages of the investigation regardless of outcome’ (Beneficiaries of late
Norbert Zongo, Abdoulaye Nikiema alias Ablasse, Ernest Zongo and Blaise Ilboudo & The
Burkinabe human and peoples’ rights movement v Burkina Faso, application 013/2011,
judgment, 28 March 2014, para 154).