99.The existence of war in Eritrea cannot therefore be used to justify excessive delay in bringing the detainees to trial. Furthermore, a backlog of cases awaiting trial cannot excuse unreasonable delays, as the European Court of Human Rights has held.29 Further, in the case of Albert Mukong, referred to above, the Human Rights Committee stated that States Parties to the ICCPR must observe certain minimum standards as regards the condition of detention, regardless of their state of development. The Commission considers that the same principle applies to the length of detention before trial, and that states parties to the Charter cannot rely on the political situation existing within their territory or a large number of cases pending before the courts to justify excessive delay.100.Moreover, the detainees are being held incommunicado, and have never been brought before a judge to face charges. In these circumstances, the Commission finds that Eritrea has breached the requirement of trial within a reasonable time set out in Article 7.1.d. This is consonant with its previous decisions, such as communication 102/93 30, in which 3 years detention was found to be unacceptable, and communication 103/93 31, in which the Commission stated that 7 years detention without trial, “clearly violates the ‘reasonable time’ standard stipulated in the Charter.”