AFRICAN UNION
UNION AFRICAINE
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UNIAO AFRICANA
AFRiCAN COURT ON HUMAN AND PEOPLES1 RJGRTS
COUR AFRICAIN£ DES DROITS DE LiHOMME ET DES PEUPLES
Urban Mkandawire v. The Republic of Malawi
(Application No. 00 1/2013)
Separate Opinion of Judge Fatsab Ouguergouz
I. Even though I subscribe to the conclusions reached by the Court concerning
the inadmissibility of the appbcations for interpretation and review of its
judgment of 21 June 2013, filed by Mr. Urban Mkandawire, I do not entirely
share the reasoning adopted to arrive at these conclusions and would like to
explain why.
I - Concerning tbe application for interpretation
2. ln paragraph 6 of the present judgment, the Court notes. and rightly so, that in
tenus of Rule 66 ( 1) of the Rules, any party may request the Court to give an
inteJ]Jretation "for the purpose of executing a judgment", and that. in the instant
case, the j udgment for which interpretation is sought, bas declared that the
application is Lnadmissible for failure of exhaustion local remedies by the
Applicant. The Court then points out that the judgment in question imposesno
obligation capab le of being executed and concludes that the application for
interpretation is not possible in terms of the relevant provisions of the Protocol
and the Rules. In my opinion, that is what would bave been enough to say on the
matter.
3. The Court however deemed it necessary to consider whether a second
condition under Rule 66 of the Rules was met, that is to say that the application
shal1 ••state clearly the point or points in the operative provisions of the
judgment on whk h interpretation is required".
4.ln that regard, the Court notes thatthe application is, on lhe contrary,
"generally incoherent and incomprehensible", and concludes that tl1e nine
1
"points"mentioned by the Applicant can never be points for intcrprctation. ln