PART D: Torture in the Promotional Mandate of the African Commission XII. NGOs with Observer Status NGOs may obtain observer status with the African Commission.531 Observer status entitles NGOs to ‘participate in its [[the Commission’s] sessions without voting rights’.532 Although NGOs (including those without observer status) are generally entitled to propose agenda points to the Secretariat of the Commission and to receive copies of the provisional agenda of sessions,533 in practice these opportunities are only really open to NGOs with observer status, as information from the Secretariat is only sent to them. To obtain observer status, an NGO must submit a ‘documented application’.534 Within three months before the session in which its application is to be considered, an NGO must submit the following documents: its statutes, information about its constituent organs, proof of its legal existence, a list of all its members, its sources of funding and a statement of its activities.535 It should be clear from its statute and stated activities that the applying NGO works in the field of human rights and that its objectives are in line with the AU Constitutive Act and the African Charter.536 From its inception in 1987 through its Fifty-fourth Ordinary Session in November 2013, the Commission has granted observer status to 466 NGOs. Among these are a number of NGOs that provide for the prevention of torture in their mandates. These NGOs include both international NGOs (such as Association pour la Prévention de la Torture (APT), Organisation Mondiale Contre la Torture (OMCT) and Penal Reform International (PRI), and African NGOs (such as the Medical Rehabilitation Centre for Trauma Victims, based in Lagos, Nigeria and Prison Fellowship of Ethiopia). Some of the most recent NGOs to obtain observer status are Avocats Sans Frontières, Global Initiative for Economic Social and Cultural Rights, and the Women’s League Centre (South Africa), among others.537 Many more of the NGOs (both international and Africa-based) include the prevention of torture and ill-treatment directly or implicitly in their mandates. 531 532 533 534 535 536 537 National human rights institutions (NHRIs) are also encouraged to obtain a special form of observer status with the Commission, termed ‘affiliate status’.19 NHRIs attended the Commission’s Thirty-ninth Session. The role of these institutions in the work of the Commission and at the sessions, however, has not always been clear. ACHPR, Rules of Procedure, supra note 43, Rule 62. Ibid., Rules 32(3)(e), and 33. ACHPR, Resolution on the criteria for granting and enjoying observer status to non-governmental organisations working in the field of human rights with the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights, ACHPR/Res.33(XXV)99, 25th Ordinary Session (5 May 1999), para. 1. Ibid., para. 3. Ibid., para. 2. ACHPR, Final Communiqué of the 54th Ordinary Session (22 October – 5 November 2013), para. 25. 125