major events: the outbreak of war on 2 August 1998 and the introduction by Pharmakina Company of its two applications for annulment filed on 10 August 1998 and notified to the Complainant respectively on 20 August and 19 September 1998. 82. The Complainant alleges that he could not have known about these two events in late July 1998 when he was leaving Bukavu, his city of residence, on what was supposed to be a short mission to Kinshasa but which became prolonged until March 2004 because of the war. The Complainant states that as a result of this turn of events, he found himself physically unable to access his case file and thus could not submit the file during the Supreme Court proceedings. In the understanding of the Complainant, there was no obligation and therefore no need for him at that particular time to travel to Kinshasa along with his case file from Bukavu, and access to which was subsequently made difficult by the war. 83. The Complainant further alleges that faced with the imminent danger of having to defend himself without prior recourse to his file, he made efforts to draw the attention of the Supreme Court to the fact that he could by no means be held responsible for the force majeure brought about by the war. The Complainant submitted these arguments in support of his petition filed under No. RA 452, as the intervening party in the proceedings to which Pharmakina had him summoned. 84. The Complainant recalls that Rule 8 (2) of the Supreme Court Procedure stipulates that any petition, indictment or brief filed with the Registry in relation to any contentious matter should have previously been communicated to the party against whom the petition is directed. 85. The Complainant claims that this notification is mandatory, but surprisingly he received no notification of the filing with the Administrative Registry of the notices issued by the Public Prosecutor in respect of the three cases numbered RA 444/445 for the Pharmakina Company and 452 for the Complainant. 86. The Complainant also alleges that the request for access to his case file in Bukavu, rejected at the hearing of 3 April 2000, was renewed in order to notify the Supreme Court that he had never dropped the case. This led to an altercation between the Complainant and members of the Chamber, forcing them to interrupt the hearing. Upon resumption of the hearing, the refusal of the deferment request was upheld. 15