South Sudan’s Defiance of the ACHPR Ruling Illegally Profits Terab Radio 87.6 FM

Juba, South Sudan - The signal of Terab Radio 87.6 FM broadcasts clearly across Juba, but the ground upon which its transmitter stands is a crime scene. The station is the commercial brainchild of Mading Ngor Akec, a self-styled journalist whose operations, with the support from the South Sudan Broadcasting Corporation (SSBC), in the Lologo II - Juba represent a visceral interrogation of the South Sudanese state’s collapse into a state-sanctioned criminal network. Backed by the tactical muscle of the South Sudan Military Police and the Joint Operational Command, Mading Ngor Akec did not merely initiate a private land dispute; he orchestrated a serial perpetuation of rights violations, utilizing armored Toyota pickups and military-grade bulldozers to violently evict Rose Modong Samuel and her family from their home. The African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights (ACHPR) has since characterized these actions not as isolated incidents, but as a coordinated assault on the rule of law where security forces functioned as a private detail for a well-connected individual. By transforming a site of illegal dispossession into a government-backed media hub—one that now hosts national ministers and presidential advisors—Mading and his military benefactors have achieved the ultimate aim of the lawless: the laundering of a human rights violation into a sovereign asset.

The merits decision in Communication 796/22 provides a surgical post-mortem of a legal system that has effectively abdicated its protective mandate. The Commission found South Sudan in violation of thirteen separate articles of the African Charter, documenting a staggering breadth of abuse that includes ethnic discrimination, the arbitrary deprivation of property, and the use of torture as a tool of litigation. At the core of the state's failure is the intersection of tribalism and impunity. The Complainants were targeted specifically because of their ethnic underrepresentation in the nation’s security and administrative sectors. The Commission noted that while the perpetrators enjoyed the "maximum protection of the national laws," the victims were "ethnically discriminated against" and denied equal protection, rendering them homeless and unprotected by the very police units stationed at their doorstep.

The legal dissection further reveals a terminal collapse of domestic remedies. The ACHPR found that the South Sudanese legal system lacks a writ of mandamus or any effective constitutional supervisory jurisdiction to compel the executive branch to adhere to the law. This "functional" lawlessness was confirmed by the Ministry of Justice itself, where the Undersecretary reportedly admitted to the Complainants that there was "nothing the Ministry of Justice can do" against the military police. By preventing victims from accessing a domestic court through restrictive clauses in the Civil Procedure Act, the state has ensured that local remedies remain "unavailable, ineffective, and insufficient".

On the illegal seizure of the passport of the complainants’ lawyer, the ACHPR has clarified that sovereign control over travel documents is not an absolute administrative privilege; it cannot be weaponized to achieve the refoulement of a state's own citizens or to force human rights defenders into a state of de facto statelessness within their own borders. By holding that the Director of Nationality and Immigration acted illegally in confiscating a valid passport, the Commission has created a potent legal shield that recognizes the right to leave one’s country as a fundamental human right subject to judicial scrutiny, not executive whim. This is particularly critical in post-conflict states like South Sudan, where the arbitrary deprivation of identity documents is often a precursor to further atrocities or ethnic cleansing.

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Why It Matters - The significance of Rose Modong Samuel v. South Sudan extends far beyond the borders of South Sudan; it is a test of the African Union’s (AU) primary objectives as enshrined in Article 3(h) of the Constitutive Act. The AU is mandated to promote and protect human rights, yet the conduct of the Respondent State in this matter represents a direct challenge to the regional framework's functional authority.

If a member state is permitted to promote the architects of torture and profit commercially from stolen land while ignoring a binding regional merits decision, the AU will be compelled to use its coercive tools to save the credibility of its institutions. Because the case highlights a systemic threat: when a state-sanctioned criminal network integrates itself into the government’s broadcasting corporation and revenue authority, the boundary between the sovereign state and the criminal enterprise disappears. The AU’s integrity now depends on its ability to move from the "promotion" of rights to the executive "enforcement" of its decisions.

The ACHPR’s final order, issued in November 2023, was explicit. South Sudan was requested to drop all forged criminal charges against the victims’ lawyer, return the seized property and provide "redress for prejudices suffered". Under Rule 125(1) of the 2020 Rules of Procedure, the state was mandated to report on its implementation measures within 180 days. That deadline has passed with a zero-percent compliance rate, our editorial team has learned; instead, the state has opted for a policy of institutionalized defiance.

The "Deep Dive" into the current situation reveals a disturbing reward system for the perpetrators. General Atem Marol Mabior, the official found responsible for the arbitrary deprivation of the lawyer’s passport and the illegal travel ban, was promoted to Inspector General of the South Sudan Police Service in November 2023. Brigadier General Alier, also implicated in the violations, was elevated to Director of Passports and Immigration. These promotions serve as a de facto state endorsement of the violations and a terminal rejection of the Commission’s urge to "investigate, prosecute, and punish all State actors responsible”.

Furthermore, the commercial exploitation of the land has reached a national scale. In July 2025, the Minister of Information, now of Justice, and high-ranking military generals attended Independence Day celebrations hosted by Mading Ngor on the stolen property, utilizing the government’s own antennae to broadcast signals for the radio station built on the ruins of the Rose family’s home. The involvement of a sitting Member of Parliament as the chairperson of the radio station’s board further illustrates the entanglement of the state’s legislative and executive branches in the continued dispossession of the Complainants.

As Juba maintains a stance of institutionalized non-compliance—profiting from seized land and promoting the architects of torture—the focus shifts from the Commission’s decision-room to the AU policy organs. This case establishes that property rights in South Sudan depends on the efficiency of the AU’s policy organs in enforcing its mandates. The Commission’s potential pivot toward the policy organs signifies the transition from quasi-judicial determination to executive implementation oversight. The integrity of the regional system now relies on this transition, as the African Union seeks to fulfill its mandate and ensure that sovereign accountability remains the bedrock of the continent’s legal architecture. African Union possesses the political courage to dismantle the criminal networks that operate in its member states with state’s backing.