Gambiaj.com – (ABUJA, Nigeria) On July 12, 2024, the ECOWAS Court of Justice found the Republic of Ghana guilty of violating Isaac Mensah’s right to information and ordered the state to release the requested documents. This judgment, delivered by Justice Edward Amoako Asante, Judge Rapporteur, mandates Ghana to provide Mensah with documents concerning the investigation into his father’s enforced disappearance and subsequent actions.
These documents include a 2009 UN/ECOWAS Investigation Report, a coroner’s report on bodies evacuated to Ghana, and a report on the disbursement of funds paid by The Gambia to affected families, among others.
The court dismissed additional claims by Isaac Mensah and the Registered Trustees of the African Network Against Extrajudicial Killings and Enforced Disappearances (ANEKED) against Ghana regarding the arrest, detention, and disappearance of West African migrants in The Gambia in July 2005. The court also dismissed the second applicant, ANEKED, a Gambian human rights NGO, due to the latter’s representation of itself and the lack of public interest in the case.
The suit, filed on November 18, 2020, under the number ECW/CCJ/APP/47/20, alleged that Peter Mensah, Isaac’s father, was among several West African migrants arrested and disappeared by The Gambia’s state security agents while en route to Europe. The applicants claimed that Ghana failed to meet its human rights obligations under the African Charter and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) by not thoroughly investigating Peter Mensah’s disappearance or providing an effective remedy and access to related information.
Isaac Mensah and ANEKED sought a court directive for Ghana to conduct an effective investigation, release the fact-finding reports and other documents, and compensate Isaac Mensah with $1,500,000.
Ghana contested the court’s jurisdiction, arguing that the incidents occurred in The Gambia and outside its territory. It also challenged the admissibility of the application, citing the applicants’ failure to establish their relationship to Peter Mensah and requested the case’s dismissal.
The court ruled it had jurisdiction over Mensah’s claim regarding the right to information but not over the claims of enforced disappearance, right to an effective remedy, and right to truth, as these occurred outside Ghana. The court found Mensah’s application admissible regarding the right to information but struck out the claims of 23 other individuals and ANEKED due to lack of authorization and evidence of a mandate to sue.
In its judgment, the court noted Ghana’s failure to release the 2009 UN/ECOWAS Investigation Report despite obtaining a confidentiality waiver from The Gambia. Consequently, the court declared Ghana’s actions a breach of Isaac Mensah’s right to information under Article 9(1) of the African Charter and Article 19(2) of the ICCPR.
The court ordered Ghana to release the requested documents within four months. Justice Gberi-Bè Ouattara and Justice Ricardo Claúdio Monteiro Gonçalves also presided over the case.
