particularly because the avenue is clearly provided in the national law of the Respondent State. 75. In addition, following his sentence at the High Court of 33 years imprisonment, the Complainant was able to secure a Lawyer through Legal Aid who appealed his case at the Court of Appeal that led to the squashing of the conviction and sentence, as well as to his subsequent release. 76. Furthermore, the Commission has been reticent in making pronouncements on cases relating to the indigent status of Complainants as it could open floodgates of cases brought to the Commission on account of indigence, unless the indigence is proven and unavailability of Legal Aid schemes in the Respondent State is sufficiently demonstrated. In Africa Legal Aid v Gambia for instance, the Commission rejected the claim that the victims' lack of financial means should be a basis for exempting the Complainants from exhausting local remedies." 77. Meanwhile, in Purohit and Moore v. The Gambia, the Commission concluded that the remedies that existed were neither realistic nor available to the victims since these were only accessible to wealthy individuals and the victims were typically "picked up from the streets or from poor backgrounds" and were indigent" The Commission determined that the remedies that existed were only available and effective to those who could afford them but, in this particular case, the victims could not. 16 The Communication was deemed admissible given that the victims belonged to a category of people for whom remedies were not realistic. 17 78. Thus, the Commission's position regarding whether a remedy should be considered unavailable simply because a person is indigent, depends on various circumstances and therefore the Commission decides on a case-by-case basis. 79. In the present Communication, the Commission is not convinced about the Complainant's excuse for not filing a claim for reparations within the period required by POPA, compounded by the fact that the Complainant does not provide any justification relating to his indigence. Additionally, he filed the Communication before the Communication about 4 months after his release and also moved to South Africa around the same period without exploring the avenues that were available to him to seek reparation for the same claims he brought before the Commission. 12 "-. '.-.