Title: The synthesis of law, judicial duty and enforcement of rights in Africa

Authors: Peter A. Atupare

Addresses: University of Ghana School of Law, P.O. Box LG 70, Legon, Accra, Ghana

Abstract: The ideals of judicial duty and the law cannot be sufficiently realised in Africa where there is a theory of human rights which sought to suggest that socio-economic rights are less important for the subjects of law on the continent. Rights, whether socio-economic or civil and political in nature, must be seen as an essential component of the rule of law. In that light, any conception of rights by any court that discounts socio-economic rights in the African human rights constituency is a negation of the ideals of the rule of law within the larger context of law on the continent. Democracies in Africa and consistent with their true plural customary values cannot sustain a theory of law and rights that bifurcate the structure of rights. Rights are rights and must be conceived and enforced without any nominative classification that discounts their unity; it is the best way that rule of law can have a better meaning for the people on the continent as subjects of the law so enacted.

Keywords: law; judicial duty; human rights; synthetises; enforcement of rights in Africa; theory of rights; rule-based rights; value-based rights; legal rights; constitutional democracy; courts.

DOI: 10.1504/IJHRCS.2023.127642

International Journal of Human Rights and Constitutional Studies, 2023 Vol.10 No.1, pp.70 - 98

Received: 08 Feb 2022
Accepted: 09 Feb 2022
Published online: 13 Dec 2022 *