Written by DAVID MUWANGA

KAMPALA, UGANDA - Lack of a trade committee at the East African Community (EAC) secretariat is hurting traders since some of them still have pending conflicts for up to five years.

 
 The East African Community (EAC) has no trade remedies committee that can handle business conflicts arising from the Customs Union, a report has said. As a result the East African Court of Justice (EACJ) has received no single case on Customs Union five years since the East African Community (EAC) Customs Union became operational,

 
"It may be of interest to investigate whether the East African Committee on Trade Remedies that is being referred to under Article 24 of the Protocol have been formed," said Dr. John Ruhangisa, the Registrar of the EACJ.

 
"No such committee has been formed to date," he told participants to the 5th Inter Parliamentary Relations Seminar held in Bujumbura, Burundi.

 
The comments are contained in a paper on the theme "The Role of the EACJ in the Customs Union and the Common Market. "This means, the people of East Africa have nowhere to present their disputes that arise out of Customs Union," he said. Dr. Ruhangisa said the Common Market Protocol does not establish a new dispute resolution body while the mechanism it has put in place does not give the court powers that would come to it.

 
Jurisdiction to handle Common Market related disputes has mainly been given to national courts according to Article 54 (2) This shows that an individual, whose rights accruing from the Common Market Protocol may be violated, has to take the matter to the national courts and shall have no immediate recourse to the EACJ.

 
He said the EACJ can't handle Common Market related matter unless a national court seized with a community law related to the matter feels a need for interpretation and refers in accordance with Article 34 of the Treaty.

 
The role of the EACJ in the realization of the Common Market depends on the extent of its Judges in being proactive and on the discretion of the national courts judges to refer the matters for interpretation by the court.The major challenge is that the Court works on an ad hoc basis which is undermining its efficiency.

 
Dr. Ruhangisa said none of the 10 judges composing the Court resides at the seat of the Court, including the President. This has made it difficult to compose the panel of Judges to sit on a particular case due to their commitments within their respective home countries.

 
"Court work is also organized by the Registrar instead of the Court's President," he said.

 
"While we wait for the Council to determine the period when the Court will become fully operational, the Court strongly feels that time has come for the President of the Court and the Principal Judge to be permanently resident in Arusha," Ruhangisa appealed.

 
He said there was an attempt by one person who filed a reference in the East African Court of Justice to test the waters. However, the case did not take off as the Court dismissed it on the preliminary objection ground which was raised by the respondent that the court had no jurisdiction.

 
Dismissal of this case by the court for lack of jurisdiction was a big blow to the business community. The court was taken to have shot itself on the foot by joining the partner states in taking away the jurisdiction which according to the Treaty is supposed to be that of EACJ.

 
"Perhaps the Court should have played a more proactive role and hear the matter by ruling that it had jurisdiction, but we should appreciate the fact that it is not for the court to confer to itself this jurisdiction that has been categorically taken away," Ruhangisa noted.