28. The Secretariat acknowledged receipt of the Complainants' Submissions by a letter dated 12thSeptember 2022,which also informed them that their Submissions would be transmitted to the Respondent State for its observations. The Secretariat forwarded the Submissions by a Note Verbal of the same date, to the Respondent State, and requested the latter to forward its observations on the said Submissions within sixty (60) days of receipt of the Submissions, in accordance with Rule 116(2) of the Rules of Procedure 2020. 29. The Commission considered the Provisional Measures request at its 73rd Ordinary Session, and decided not to grant it. 30. At its 75thOrdinary Session held from 3 to 23 May 2023 in Banjul, The Gambia, the Commission declared the Communication admissible. This decision was forwarded to the parties respectively on 7 June 2023 by a letter and Note Verbal dated 5 June 2023. The Note Verbale again requested the latter to submit its observations within thirty (30) days of receipt of the notification. The Law on Admissibility Complainants' Submission on Admissibility 31. The Complainants submit that the Communication satisfies all the criteria for admissibility under Article 56(1), (2), (3), (6) and (7) ofthe African Charter. 32. They put forward that although the Communication mentions mostly an individual's name - Mading, who is the instigator of the events, the actions complained against are those perpetuated by the law enforcement institutions and agents of the Respondent State, particularly the Military Police acting under the instruction of their Commanders. 33. The Complainants' arguments center mostly on Article 56(5) of the African Charter on exhaustion of local r~medies. Th~ Complainants re-iterate the steps they have taken at domestic level, stated at paragraphs 8 - 24 above, and assure that they attempted to exhaust all local remedies available in the Respondent State but that local judicial remedies are. unavailable, ineffective and insufficient and that every attempt to access them was blocked by the Military Police, and therefore cannot be accessed freely. 34. The Complainants also submit that although the Media had reported that a Presidential Order was issued that called every soldier being used as bodyguards to return to barracks, a huge number of the Military Police continue to guard Mading at the illegally possessed properties in Lologo II and continue to be deployed to intimidate the complainants and block their case at all levels.

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