While presenting a paper on the role of EACJ in EAC’s integration in November last year, Justice Nsekela made remarks that questioned the spirit of these amendments, saying that allowing national courts to interpret the Treaty and hear disputes arising out of the implementation of the EAC’s protocols would breed conflicting interpretations of the same document from one partner state to the other.

Indeed legal experts refer to the Court of Justice of the European Union as the only institution that is mandated to settle legal disputes between governments and EU institution, as well as interpret EU law to make sure that it is applied similarly in all member countries.

“It should be appreciated that the question of what the Treaty reserves for an institution of a partner state is a provision of the Treaty and a matter that ought to be determined harmoniously and with certainty. It left as amended, the provisions are likely to lead to conflicting interpretations of the Treaty by national courts of the partner states,” said Justice Nsekela

What is critical, however, is that what is emerging in Eactpol’s suit and the reading of EACJ’s officials of these amendments is not an isolated view.
At the annual good governance conference held late last year in Kampala, legal experts imputed that the bloc’s leaders often sign international treaties without really being persuaded by their contents.

Adams Oloo, senior lecturer of law at Nairobi University, said regional institutions and projects that have been agreed to should be binding on partner states, and signing such treaties should no longer be a public relations exercise.

Professor of law at university of Dar es Salaam John Kabudi also argues that “issues of integration are issues of international law and not of national constitutions and courts.”
However, he observes that among EAC partner states, only Tanzania and Burundi currently provide in their constitutions that international treaties are binding laws once the president has signed them.