The African Charter on Democracy, Elections and Governance – you better take it seriously!

Feb 1st, 2012 4:28 PM UTC
By Friederike Röder

In three weeks, the African Charter on Democracy, Elections and Governance will enter into force. The Charter was adopted by the African Union (AU) five years ago. Now that fifteen member states have ratified it, the Charter becomes legally binding and operational. Guinea-Bissau, Nigeria and Cameroon were the 13^th, 14^th and 15^th countries to ratify the Charter. Why should we bother about this document? A Charter that was ratified in majority by countries that don’t lead by example in terms of good governance; a Charter that might be just another paper tiger without any teeths; one of a range of legal documents that don’t change anything about the real lives of African citizens?

Not quite.

The African Charter actually doesn’t contain many new elements. But, much more important, it summarizes and reconfirms existing African engagements on good governance that the continent’s leaders have taken over the last thirty years or so. And the Charter takes them a step further, in operationalizing their implementation. So instead of adding to the pile, it tries to rationalize the African good governance architecture and improve its translation into reality.

Though the African Charter doesn’t reinvent the wheel, it still is a leading international convention in terms of good governance. First of all because the principles of the AU, which are enshrined by the Charter, are very far-reaching. For instance the AU has the right to take action in case of an unconstitutional change of government in one of its member states. Second, because the Charter is the only international convention that dares to take up the sensitive issue of democracy, while other treaties prefer sticking to human rights principles or anti-corruption measures.

The African Charter has already proved to be a useful tool. One of the first countries to ratify was Mauritania – just before a coup hit the country. In order to negotiate the return to constitutional order, the AU took the Charter as reference point. At that moment, the Charter was strictly speaking not yet legally applicable because it had not entered into force, but this didn’t matter as Mauritania had endorsed it. As this example suggests, the fact that the Charter has been ratified by some not-so-democratic countries is an encouraging sign, rather than simply a basis for criticism. These are the countries that potentially will need the Charter and in which this legal document could make a difference.

Last but not least, the process of the Charter itself should be acknowledged. After having been adopted by the AU in 2007, only four countries had ratified it after more than four years! So the Charter was at risk of disappearing before even having really entered the stage. The Pan-African Parliament took on this challenge. This Parliament, also called the PAP, is the equivalent of the European Parliament, but with some small differences: the African body has around 50 employees, the EU parliament 6000. The European Union parliamentarians have an official role in decision-making, the African Union parliamentarians are still limited to a consultative role. Knowing its limits, the Parliament partnered with civil society and launched a campaign called “11 before 2011” in order to get to 15 ratifications, the number needed for the Charter to enter into force. It took a lot of lobbying, several regional conferences, a documentary on TV, outreach to student activists in several countries and a year longer than initially planned, but now the campaign has reached its goal. Congratulations! Though this is not where the work ends: now the goal is to have the rest of the 53 AU member states ratify the Charter!

TAGS: Africa, African Union, Governance and Security, Transparency