96. However, the question is, having left the country, could the Complainant still have exhausted local remedies or better still is he required to exhaust local remedies? 97. The first test that a local remedy must pass is that it must be available to be exhausted. The 11 word “available” means “readily obtainable”, [/quote]“accessible”[/quote] ; or “attainable, reachable on call, on hand ready, present; … convenient, at one’s service, at one’s command, at one’s disposal, 12 at one’s beck and call” . According to the African Commission, a remedy is considered to be available if the petitioner can pursue it without impediments or if he can make use of it in the 13 circumstances of his case. In the present communication, the question to be asked is whether there were remedies available to the Complainant even from outside the Respondent State? 98. The State indicates that in terms of its laws, a Complainant need not be physically present in the country in order to access local remedies, adding that both the High Court Act and the Supreme Court Act permit any person to make an application to either court through his/her lawyer. In support of this, the State cited the Ray Choto and Mark Chavhundukacase where the victims were tortured by state agents and they applied for compensation while they were both in the United Kingdom and succeeded in their claim. The State concluded that the Complainant is not barred from pursuing remedies in a similar manner. The State further argues that since his resignation, the government of Zimbabwe continues to pay the Complainant his pension benefits which he could have used to instruct his counsel in Zimbabwe to attend to his claim on his behalf. 99. The Complainant does not dispute the availability of local remedies in the Respondent State, but argues that in his particular case, having fled the country for fear of his life, and now out of the country, local remedies are not available to him. 100. The African Commission holds the view that having failed to establish that he left the country involuntarily, and the view of the fact that in Zimbabwe law, one need not be physically in the country to access local remedies; the Complainant cannot claim that local remedies were not available to him. 101. The Complainant argues that even if local remedies were available, they were not effective because the State has the tendency of ignoring court rulings taken against it, citing among others, the High Court decision in the Commercial Farmers Union and the Ray Choto and Mark Chavhunduka cases, and added that the Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights has documented at least 12 instances where the state has ignored court rulings since 2000. 102. The Rules of Procedure of the African Commission provide that “the Commission shall 14 determine questions of admissibility pursuant to Article 56 of the Charter” .. Generally the rules require applicants to set out in their submissions the steps taken to exhaust domestic remedies. They must provide some prima facie evidence of an attempt to exhaust local remedies. The Human Rights Committee has stated that the mere fact that a domestic remedy is inconvenient or unattractive, or does not produce a result favourable to the petitioner does not, in itself, demonstrate the lack of 15 16 exhaustion of all effective remedies. In the Committee’s decision on A v Australia , it held that [quote]“mere doubts about the effectiveness of local remedies or prospect of financial costs involved 17 did not absolve the author from pursuing such remedies” . In Article 19 v Eritrea, the Commission held that “it is incumbent on the Complainant to take all necessary steps to exhaust, or at least attempt the exhaustion of local remedies. It is not enough for the Complainant to cast aspersion on the ability of the domestic remedies of the State due to isolated incidences”. The European Court of Human Rights on its part has held that even if the applicants have reason to believe that available domestic remedies and possible appeals will be ineffective, they should seek those remedies since “it is generally incumbent on an aggrieved individual to allow the domestic courts the opportunity to develop 18 existing rights by way of interpretation”.1 103. From the above analysis, this Commission is of the view that the Complainant ignored to utilise the domestic remedies available to him in the Respondent State, which had he attempted, might have yielded some satisfactory resolution of the complaint. 104. Article 56.6 of the Charter provides that “Communications received by the Commission will be considered if they are submitted within a reasonable period from the time local remedies are exhausted, or from the date the Commission is seized with the matter ...” The Respondent State contends that the present communication on was not submitted on time by the Complainant, as required by the African Charter.