Courts and Cocktails by Alondra Duran

At the beginning of planning for this trip, we were told to bring a business casual outfit. I struggle with that concept still in finding the happy medium between casual and business, so my compromise was bring a suit and figure it out there.

Today was the day to figure that out, so once I got it together, off we were to visit the High Court in Arusha, Tanzania, and the African Court of Human Rights!

The High Court was a more tedious process, we needed to be accompanied by representatives of Inherit Your Rights to be able to enter the facility. The building itself was very nice, we waited for quite a bit, but once we were greeted by a staff member, we learned that many levels of the judicial system were in that building, from the lower level to the high level and appeals court. We got the opportunity to see inside an empty courtroom as well! We learned that there were proceedings happening at the moment that were not open to the public, and timing constraints prevented us from sitting in on the public ones that were available later on, so we were unable to see the court in action. We were waiting on the call to head over to the next destination as well, the African Court of Human Rights!

Here, we were greeted by Emmanuel Niyonkuru. From the get go, he seemed excited to have us and to tell us about the work the court does. He started off by telling us about the judges that we’re currently sitting in the court, of which five out of the twelve were women! We got to see the library and public hearing room, and got to ask many questions. This visit was by far my favorite, and I have a new bucket list wish of visiting the other two human rights court in the world, one in France for Europe, and one in Costa Rica for the Americas.

Some afterthoughts of these visits is how the in country courts have barriers to successfully prosecuting crimes, whether it be from witness intimidation, to people simply not coming forward with information. At the external courts like that or the human rights court, they struggle with the enforcement of judgments, as countries don’t want to be told what to do by other entities. That is not to say that no countries enforce any judgment rendered by the human rights court, but very few do, and those that do not, rather opt out of the agreement entirely to be in the court of human rights. I do not have the answer to any of these issues, as in addition to it being an issue of sovereignty, it is also a see cultural issue that is hard to change in any community.

After we had our visits, we went to debrief at the Blue Heron. It was a beautiful sight with mountains and the sunset in the backdrop. It was also the first place I found a margarita, so of course I got one. I got a margarita pizza too because might as well. We went around to give out highs for the days and mine was definitely seeing the court of human rights. It was a dream of mine to visit the one in Costa Rica, but thought that might have been too far fetched of a goal, let alone any of the other ones. But now that I am here in Africa, seeing this one, I have no excuse but to visit the other two, it is possible, and with the career that I’m building on, it just makes sense.

 

Asante Sana!

 

////Alondra Duran