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Temple Garden Chambers is a leading common law set based in London and The Hague.
With excellence from top to bottom Chambers provides a first class service in a number of different fields.
04/04/2025
By a ruling dated 17 March 2025 and notified yesterday, 3 April 2025, the African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights has addressed the Tunisian Government’s request for the revocation of the Court’s order of 28 August 2023 indicating provisional measures for the protection of political prisoners as well as the Tunisian Government’s withdrawal of the declaration giving individuals and non-governmental organisations the right to institute cases against Tunisia before the Court.
Consistently with its longstanding jurisprudence, the Court has ruled that the withdrawal has no effect on pending cases, including Ghannouchi and Others v Republic of Tunisia itself. The Court has therefore held ‘that its personal jurisdiction to examine the present matter is established’.
The Court has also ruled, again consistently with its longstanding jurisprudence, ‘that such a withdrawal takes effect 12 months after the filing of the instrument of withdrawal’. Therefore, the Tunisian Government’s withdrawal will only take effect on 8 March 2026.
The Court went on to reject the Tunisian Government’s request for revocation of the provisional measures ordered in the Ghannouchi and Others case. It follows that those provisional measures stand and must be implemented by the Tunisian Government.
Rodney Dixon KC and Sebastian Bates act before the Court for the applicants in Ghannouchi and Others and in the separate but parallel case of Akremi v Republic of Tunisia. Rodney Dixon KC has made a statement about the Tunisian Government’s withdrawal, which is available here.
