PROCEDURE Jurisdiction Advisory opinions The Court has the discretion on whether or not to provide an advisory opinion pursuant to article 4(1) of the Protocol (Request for advisory opinion by the African Committee of Experts on the Rights and Welfare of the Child, 002/2013, advisory opinion, 5 December 2014, para 40). The subject matter of the advisory opinion should not be an issue which is already being examined by the African Commission (Request for advisory opinion by the African Committee of Experts on the Rights and Welfare of the Child, 002/2013, advisory opinion, 5 December 2014, para 34). The advisory opinion must be about legal matters and set out clearly the question which the court is requested to answer and the specific provisions of the Charter or other human rights instruments in respect of which the opinion is sought (Request for advisory opinion by the African Committee of Experts on the Rights and Welfare of the Child, 002/2013, advisory opinion, 5 December 2014, para 35). Jurisdiction ratione temporis and jurisdiction ratione loci do not arise in a request for advisory opinion which does not involve the determination of facts (Request for advisory opinion by the African Committee of Experts on the Rights and Welfare of the Child, 002/2013, advisory opinion, 5 December 2014, para 39). The African Committee of Experts on the Rights and Welfare of the Child is an organ of the AU and therefore has standing to request an advisory opinion from the Court in terms of article 4(1) of the Protocol (Request for advisory opinion by the African Committee of Experts on the Rights and Welfare of the Child, 002/2013, advisory opinion, 5 December 2014, para 57). To determine whether the Court has personal jurisdiction, the Court must satisfy itself that the applicant falls within the entities allowed to make a request for advisory opinions by virtue of article 4 of the Court’s Protocol (Request for advisory opinion by the Socio-Economic Rights Accountability Project (SERAP), 001/2013, advisory opinion, 26 May 2017, para 38). The use of the term ‘Organisation’ and ‘African Organisation’ in article 4 of the Court’s Protocol covers both inter-governmental and non-governmental organisations as the drafters would have specified if they meant to cover only inter-governmental organisations in the manner specified in article 5 of the Court’s Protocol relating contentious cases (Request for advisory opinion by the Socio-Economic Rights Accountability Project (SERAP), 001/2013, advisory opinion, 26 May 2017, paras 46 & 47). In this regard, an NGO is an African organisation if it is registered in an

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