a. If no domestic, remedies are available or there is unseasonable delay on the
part of national Courts in granting the remedy
b. Where the treaty establishing a tribunal excludes the application of the rule
either exprecisly on by necessary implication.
Indeed, the rule of local remedies should not constitute an unjustified
impediment to access to the international remedies. The drafters of the
Supplementary Protocol 2005 which created the human rights jurisdiction of
this Court provides the conditions to be satisfied by Applicant before
accessing this Court, namely
i.
The application must not be anonymous
ii.
The application must not be brought when same is already pending
before another international Court.
There is no requirement of the exhaustion of local remedies before accessing this
Court. The Defendant argued that the Applicants failed to exhaust local remedies as
a condition precedent for approaching this court and therefore in flagrant violation
to articles 26, 50 and 56(5) of the African Charter on Human and Peoples Rights.
We need to start by making it clear that the provisions relied upon by the Defendant
is a procedural rule applicable by the African Court and this Court is not bound by
the procedural provisions of the African Court.
25