4.4.4 Opportunities and Challenges Since the ECOWAS Court is not a human rights court, it has limited experience adjudicating human rights matters, which may present some challenges. The challenges may manifest by way of lack of foresight on understanding the nuances of violations and state responsibility and/or therefore not seizing opportunities to rule on violations as basic as discrimination that levels up with international standards. However, one of the opportunities with the ECOWAS Court is the relative speed with which the Court addressed the urgent human rights issue on slavery. A court’s ability to render timely justice is of critical importance in situations of ongoing grave human rights violations. The Hadijatou Mani case was completed within a year of filing the application, a much encouraging timeline as compared to the prolonged proceedings before other human rights commissions and courts. The Court’s ability and willingness to sit and conduct hearings in the State where the violations occur is of further significance in the struggle for justice for human rights violations. 121 Moreover, not requiring applicants to exhaust domestic remedies and the fact that the Court has a mandate to issue binding judgments should encourage women victims and survivors from the sub-region to file applications with the ECOWAS Court. 4.5 SADC Tribunal Like the ECOWAS Court, the Southern Africa Development Community’s (SADC) Tribunal too recently exerted its influence on a human rights matter and decided on a case of racial discrimination and unlawful expropriation of land without access to courts in Zimbabwe. 122 The SADC Tribunal, like other sub-regional courts, does not have an exclusive mandate to adjudicate on human rights matters but has jurisdiction to decide on questions of human rights violations among other issues. Indeed, the SADC Tribunal’s mandate to judge human rights matter is not without contention. The Tribunal has been effectively stalled following the judgment in the landmark Zimbabwean case. The Tribunal was established in 1992 as an institution of the treaty establishing the Southern Africa Development Community’s (SADC) and was sworn in November 2005. By Article 4 of that treaty, SADC and its Member States are obliged to act in accordance with the principles of human rights, democracy and the rule of law. This is the basis of the SADC Tribunal’s interpretation of its own role. The Tribunal’s seat is Windhoek, Namibia. It has jurisdiction over disputes between SADC Member States and on disputes between legal or natural persons and Member States. However, in order for a person to bring a case before the Tribunal, all internal legal remedies of the Member State concerned have to be exhausted. Also, a person can bring a case against another person under SADC law directly to the Tribunal if the other party so agrees. Persons may sue the Community over the legality, interpretation or application of SADC law. A person may also bring a Member State to the Tribunal in connection with SADC law or the State’s obligations under such law once national remedies have been exhausted, thus making the Tribunal a final court of appeal for matters relating to SADC Law. Proceedings before the Tribunal shall be instituted by either an application or a special agreement between the parties to the proceedings. Conditions for admissibility are the following: 1. The application shall state:(a) the name and address of the applicant (b) the name, 121 Ibid., at page 18. 122 Mike Campbell (Pvt) Ltd & Ors v. Republic of Zimbabwe [2008] SADCT2008/2 available at http: //www.saflii.org/sa/cases/SADCT/2008/2. REDRESS | REGIONAL MECHANISMS 35