This paper argues essentially that reform of the African regional human rights system is a multi-dimensional and incremental project, the realisation of which will benefit from optimising the case-based and quasi-judicial mandates of the African Commission. Because it creates an institutional mechanism for implementing human rights in Africa, this paper is built around the African Charter and the Commission created by it. It begins with a summary of some of the criticisms of the Charter and the Commission and then proceeds to give an overview of the current performance of the Commission and the constraints faced by it. It attempts to summarise some of the major areas of the Commission's jurisprudence to demonstrate how many of the early criticisms of the Charter and the Commission are now in arrears of the current state of evolution of the African regional system. This paper seeks to make the case that the clamour for reform of the African regional system must be based on a careful, more rigorous assessment of the actual performance and real potential of the African regional system than is presently the case.