30. On 17th February 2000, the Secretariat received a Note Verbale from the High Commission of the Federal Republic of Nigeria in Banjul, referring to the above Note Verbale and requesting the Commission to forward the following documents to the country's competent authorities to enable them prepare appropriate responses to the alleged violations: 1. The Draft Agenda for the 27th Ordinary Session and the letter of invitation to the session from the Secretariat; 2. A copy of the complaint that was attached to the Secretariat’s Note; 3. A copy of the Report of the 26th Ordinary Session. 31. Further to the above request, the Secretariat of the Commission on 8th March 2000, forwarded all the documents as requested (except the Report of the 26th Ordinary Session), together with a copy of the summary and status of all pending communications against Nigeria, as well as a copy each of communications 218/98, 224/98 and 225/98, as submitted by their authors. 32. On 21st March 2000, the legal representative of the Complainant sent a letter to the Secretariat informing it that she would present oral arguments on the merits of the case and requested for likely dates of such presentation. 33. By letter of 22nd March 2000, the Secretariat informed her of the possible date and drew her attention to the necessity of submitting a copy of the address to it before presentation. 34. At its 27th Ordinary Session held in Algeria, the Commission deferred taking a decision on the merits of the case to the 28th Ordinary Session scheduled for Republic of Benin. 35. The above decision was communicated to the parties on 6th July 2000. Law Admissibility 36. At its 25th Ordinary Session held in Bujumbura, Burundi, the Commission requested the Secretariat to give its opinion on the effect of Article 56 (7) of the Charter in view of the prevailing political situation in Nigeria. Relying on the case law of the Commission, the Secretariat submitted that based on the well established principle of international law, a new government inherits the previous government’s international obligations, including responsibility for the previous government’s misdeeds ( see Krishna Achutan and Amnesty International/Malawi communications 62/92 [sic], 68/92 and 78/92). 37. The Commission has always dealt with communications by deciding upon the facts alleged at the time of submission of the communication (see communications 27/89, 46/91 [sic] and 99/93). Therefore, even if the situation has improved, such as leading to the release of the detainees, repealing of the offensive laws and tackling of impunity, the position still remains that the responsibility of the present government of Nigeria would still be engaged for acts of human rights violations which were perpetrated by its predecessors. 38. Furthermore, it submitted that the Commission should not be swayed by the political situation in the country, as that is capable of foreclosing the Complainants’ right to fair hearing, especially where they may be desirous of remedying the alleged violations. In any case, it noted that although Nigeria is now under a democratically elected government, the new Constitution provides by its Section 6(6)(d) that no legal action can be brought to challenge [[span class="JQ-