EAC court lacks funds : The Standard

The East African Court of Justice is underfunded, a judge at the court has said. Justice Emmanuel Ugirashebuja, President of the East African Court of Justice said this is caused by lack of compliance from some East Africa member states to disburse funds that run functions of the court. This came up on Thursday at a panel discussion, at the 20th High Level Conference on Trade Integration 2019 at The Radisson Blue Hotel Nairobi. "Because of this, the independence of the court is jeopardised. Courts must be funded to advance operations that aid enhancing of trade integration in East African Community,” he said. Mr Ugirashebuja explained how there are many pending cases at the court because there is no money to finance operations.

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He also alluded that failure to resolve the matter, may be contested in court. Concerns over arbitration costs also emerged, with Mr Francis Gimara, Head of ALP East Africa and a renowned attorney, saying the costs are high. This, he said, is caused by ‘leaders not walking the talk’ on the issue of hiring external arbitrators and overlooking the regional ones. "Our leaders will tell us they encourage the building of African institutions, regional and local labour but when issues of arbitration come up, they will hire expensively from Europe and other external sources. This makes the costs high,” Mr Gimara said.   

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BudgetEACEast African Court of Justice