Protocols and legal basis

The Treaty establishing the African Economic Community, signed at Abuja in Nigeria in 1991, named a Pan-African Parliament among the nine organs of the Community. It provided for the body without constituting it: no seat, no composition, no powers, and no date.

Nine years passed between that provision and the Article that gave it effect, and a further thirteen between the Treaty and the Parliament’s first sitting.

Article 17 of the Constitutive Act of the African Union establishes a Pan-African Parliament as an organ of the Union, and states the purpose it is to serve: to ensure the full participation of African peoples in the development and economic integration of the continent.

The Article establishes the organ but leaves its composition, powers and functions to a separate Protocol. That Protocol is the instrument below.

The Protocol was adopted on 2 March 2001 and entered into force on 14 December 2003. It has been ratified by 51 of the 55 member states, each listed in the record of ratification.

Ratifying this Protocol is what makes a state a member of the Parliament. It is the instrument in force today, and the source of every function in Article 11, all of which are consultative or advisory.

Article 4 requires each national parliament to be represented by five members, at least one of whom must be a woman, and requires the representation of each member state to reflect the diversity of political opinion in its own legislature. Article 5 provides that members are elected or designated by those national parliaments rather than by the Union.

The Malabo Protocol was adopted on 27 June 2014. It has been ratified by 14 of the 55 member states and has not entered into force. Its standing is set out in full on its own page.

Adopted at Malabo in 2014 to replace the 2001 Protocol and to give the Parliament legislative power. It has not entered into force, and it requires ratification by a simple majority of the member states before it does.

Twelve years after adoption the count stands at fourteen. Until that changes, the 2001 Protocol remains the governing instrument and the Parliament remains a consultative body.

The Parliament rests on three legal instruments, and they do different things. One named it, one created it and governs it today, and one would change what it is. Only the first two are in force.

Reading them in order explains both what the Parliament may do and why it cannot yet do more, because each instrument was written to be replaced by the next.