Judges at East African Court of Justice in Arusha,Tanzania on June 6, 2017. PHOTO//EALAJ

A South Sudanese lawyer, who petitioned against the MPs appointed to East Africa Legislature from being sworn in, says he has conditionally withdrawn his case from the regional court.

Santino Wani told Eye Radio, he did so after the EAC court asked him during a hearing this week to compromise his stance on the matter.

On Tuesday, the Transitional National Legislative Assembly revoked its resolution confirming nine members to the East African Legislative Assembly.

The parliament’s decision to withdraw its approval came after the court issued an order stopping the swearing in of the nine members, but the speaker said the resolution had nothing to do with the court order.

However, Wani says it was against this background that the court asked for a compromise, which his legal team rejected at first, arguing the MPs were appointed through a presidential decree.

Mr. Wani says they accepted to retract the petition, but on condition that an election is held in line with article 50 of the East Africa Treaty on Election of representatives.

“The court requested to compromise but we say it is ok, since we have two applications in the court. We have application number five which was the main reference and the application number eight which I signed later for an injunction because I never wanted the status quo to change. If the status quo change and they get sworn in then the case will have been destroyed and during the hearing I withdraw application number eight, but number is still there in case the government fails to conduct election in line with article fifty then our reference number five is still there to protect us and we continue with the case against the government,” Wani said.

On Thursday, the TNLA house speaker, Anthony Lino Makana, then formed a six-member committee to enact a law for an election to take place.

The members are Hon. Dengtiel Kur, Hon. Abraham Biar, Hon. Professor George Bureng, Hon. Margaret Samuel Aru and Hon. Martha Martin.

Efforts to reach government official for a comment were not immediately successful.