A former employee of the ECOWAS Commission filed a case, but it was dismissed by the ECOWAS Court since it was submitted beyond the deadline.
Dorothy Etim filed lawsuit ECW/CCJ/APP/44/21, claiming that she was unfairly terminated on September 8, 2015, by the President of the ECOWAS Commission.
She said the incident stemmed from a claim she generated fake paperwork to obtain an education grant from ECOWAS for her four children.
She informed the Court that the Respondents had not extended an invitation to her to comment on or refute the claims of “fraud” and “forgery.” She continued by saying that she had written multiple letters on the subject but had not heard back.
Mrs. Etim requested that her firing be ruled unlawful by the court. In addition, she asked the court to order the Respondents to pay her accumulated benefits and salaries as well as 300,000,000 Naira in exemplary damages.
As stated in Article 9(3) of the 2005 Supplementary Protocol, actions by or against a Community Institution or any Member of the Community are statute-barred after three years from the day the right of action arose.
Accordingly, the ECOWAS Commission requested that the Court dismiss the case in its answer.
Additionally, the Commission claimed that Mrs. Etim disregarded institutional procedures, namely by failing to file an appeal with the Council of Ministers or the Head of the Institution within the required time frame.
The claim for the incident in 2015 that was filed in 2021 was found to be inadmissible by the court since it was submitted beyond the deadline.
Only Member States, not ECOWAS institutions, may be party to accusations of human rights violations, according to Justice Sengu Mohamed Koroma’s ruling.
The lawsuit against the Commission President was also dropped since it was thought to be redundant to sue both the Commission and the President.
Justices Dupe Atoki and Ricardo Cláudio Monteiro Gonçalves sit on the panel of the ECOWAS Court, which adjudicates conflicts between Community institutions and their staff.
