Introduction
In our earlier piece, we examined the role of national courts and tribunals in the enforcement of Community law at national level (see https://www.thenewsguru.com/regional-economic-community-the-role-of-national-courts-and-tribunal-in-the-enforcement-of-community-law).

We observed that one of the reasons for the slowness of the process of regional economic integration in Africa is the non-enforcement at national level of the legal instruments adopted within the framework of the Regional Economic Communities (RECs). We concluded that the process will be accelerated and intra-African trade and investment ultimately boosted if national courts and tribunals in the RECs exercise the responsibilities incumbent on them in terms of the enforcement of the Community legal instruments, guaranteeing the effectiveness of the latter. In the present paper we shall examine briefly the role of the Community Court of Justice, that is, the judicial organ of the Institution, in the enforcement of Community law. Like the previous paper, this paper will be based on the practices of the European Economic Community/European Union Court of Justice (ECJ). The reason is simple: the European Economic Community/European Union is globally considered the most advanced and most successful regional economic bloc; it created the basic rules of what is known as “community law” which differs in some aspects from the ordinary international law. Every regional “economic community” must follow these time-honoured basic rules if it wants to function properly.

At a time when African business leaders are calling for the strengthening of the regional economic blocs created to foster economic integration, when continental political, economic and financial institutions make regional economic integration one of their priorities[i], when African governments are gearing up to implement an intra-African free trade agreement, it would be helpful to take a look at the EEC/EU model and see if anything can be borrowed from it in terms of the enforcement of the rights and obligations granted within the framework of a regional economic bloc.  For it makes no difference how many rights and obligations an institution creates or how many rules it adopts, if they cannot be enforced one can hardly claim that they actually exist and the noble objectives of the institution can hardly be achieved. We shall make reference to the practices of the African Community Courts of Justice where this is necessary to emphasise a point. 

Enforcement of Community Law by the European Court of Justice
One of the functions of the European Economic Community/European Union Court of Justice (ECJ)[ii] is to ensure that the provisions of the Treaties and the legal instruments adopted pursuant to the Treaties are interpreted and applied properly by all the Member States. Where the law is not complied with the Court intervenes and delivers a ruling to remedy the situation. It thus controls the conduct of the national courts in the areas which fall within the scope of application of the Treaties. Membership of the Community/Union entails acceptance of its jurisdiction. But the Court does not intervene on the basis of its own investigations; it intervenes on the basis of complaints from “some persons”, which brings us to the question: Who can file a complaint to the Court, or rather who has access to the Court?

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Source: https://wareiobs.com/community-court-of-justice-in-the-enforcement-of-community-law/