31' ln its Response, the Respondent State, citing Rule 34(4) of the Rules, contends that the Applicants did not exhaust local remedies prior to bringing the case before the Court, and prayed this Court to declare the Application inadmissible. 32. On this point, the Applicants themselves admit that they have not exhausted the local remedies before seizing this Court. They however refer to the provisions of Rule 40(5) of the Rules of Court, and indicate that: the case pending before the Bamako court of Appeal has been unduly prolonged; lt ilt the Appeal is not efficient, and the civil claim, for its part, is already void of its substance because the acts committed by Boussourou, their aggressor, have been underestimated. 33' The Court will now examine the three arguments advanced by the Applicants in support of the objections to the rule of prior exhaustion of locat remedies. A. on the allegation that the domestic procedure has been unduly protonged 34. The Applicants point out that the case has been pending before the Bamako Court of Appeal for two years and two months; and that a case that was adjudicated in less than a week at the criminal court cannot reasonably take more than two years before the Appeal Court. They therefore prayed the Court to find that the procedure has been unduly prolonged and to accept the exception to the rule of exhaustion of local remedies as provided under Article 56(5) of the charter and reiterated in Rule 40(5) of the Rules of court. 35. The Respondent State, in response, contends that at the time this Court was seized, the case had not yet been definitively closed at domestic level; adding that the prolongation was due to procedural difficulties. lt further argues that if Mali did not dispose of the case, it was because the judge was still awaiting the 8 @g-4