quotes"]]‘any existing law made on or after 15th January, 1966 for determining any issue or question as to the competence of any authority or person to make any such law’. 39. For the above reasons, and also for the fact that, as alleged, there were no avenues for exhausting local remedies, the Commission declared the communication admissible. Merits 40. The Complainant alleges a violation of Article 5 of the Charter with respect to Mr Ogaga Ifowodo only. Article 5 states: Every individual shall have the right to the respect of the dignity inherent in a human being and to the recognition of his legal status. All forms of exploitation and degradation of man particularly slavery, slave trade, torture, cruel, inhuman or degrading punishment and treatment shall be prohibited. It is alleged that Mr Ogaga Ifowodo was detained in a sordid and dirty cell under inhuman and degrading conditions. Also, that being detained arbitrarily, not knowing the reason or duration of detention, is itself a mental trauma. Moreover, added to this, deprivation of contact with the outside world and health threatening conditions, it amounts to cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment. Principle 1 of the UN Body of Principles for the Protection of All Persons under Any Form of Detention or Imprisonment provides: All persons under any form of detention or imprisonment shall be treated in a humane manner and with respect for the inherent dignity of the human person. Further, Principle 6 states: No person under any form of detention or imprisonment shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment. No circumstance whatever may be invoked as a justification for torture or other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment. It is worth noting that the term ‘cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment’ is to be interpreted so as to extend to the widest possible protection against abuses, whether physical or mental (See UN Body of Principles). 41. The prohibition of torture, cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment is absolute. However, as observed by the European Court of Human Rights in Ireland v. United Kingdom when called upon to decide on a similar provision of the European Convention on Human Rights “…the treatment prohibited under Article 3 of the Convention is that which attains a minimum level of severity and…the assessment of this minimum is, in the nature of things, relative…. It depends on all the circumstances of the case, such as the duration of the treatment, its physical or mental effects and, in some cases, the sex, age and state of health of the victim etc.” (Judgement of 18> January 1987, series A no. 25 para. 162; see also the European Commission on Human Rights decision in Jose Antonio URRUTIKOETXEA v. France, Decision of 5th December 1996, p. 157). The treatment meted out to the victim in this case constitutes a breach of the provision of Article 5 of the Charter and the relevant international human rights instruments cited above. Also the denial of medical attention under health threatening conditions and access with the outside world do not fall into the province of ‘ the respect of the dignity inherent in a human being and to the recognition of his legal status’, nor is it in line with the requirement of Principles 1 and 6 of the UN Body of Principles for the Protection of All Persons under Any Form of Detention or Imprisonment . This, therefore, is a breach of Article 5 of the Charter. 42. The Complainant alleges that the detention of Ogaga Ifowodo and Olisa Agbakoba under the State Security (Detention of Persons) Decree, No. 2 1984 (as amended in 1990), violates their