The African Court of Human Rights (Cadhp) issued a new judgment on Friday, December 4 against the State of Benin, denouncing several human rights violations and ordering the cancellation of several constitutional reforms five months before the next presidential election.
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The Court, which sits in Arusha in Tanzania, considers in particular that Benin has violated "the right to life, the right not to be subjected to torture and the right to respect for the inherent dignity of the human person", during the period of post-election crisis of the legislative elections of 2019 when several demonstrators were killed by live ammunition.
She also denounces the lack of "guarantee of independence of the judiciary" in this West African country and ruled that the recent "constitutional revision was adopted in violation of the principle of national consensus", public debate or referendum imposed by the African Charter of Human Rights.
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It also calls for the restoration of the right to strike and orders Benin to repeal all the incriminated laws within 3 months, and before any election.
"From now on, it is up to Benin to guarantee free and open elections," Antoine Vey, lawyer for Sebastien Ajavon, a Beninese opponent in exile and ineligibility who seized the Court in November 2019, told AFP.
President Patrice Talon is accused of engaging Benin in an authoritarian and unopposed turn in a country once known to be an example of stability and democracy in West Africa.
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In the 2019 legislative elections, no opposition candidate was able to present a list for administrative reasons and more recently, during the April 2020 municipal elections boycotted by part of the opposition, only six dissident mayors were elected. .
The next presidential election will be held on April 11, 2021, but the opposition and civil society denounce a locked ballot in advance and question a new provision in the electoral law which requires the candidate to be sponsored by 16 mayors or deputies, now almost all spent in the presidential camps.
