İLHAN v. TURKEY JUDGMENT 15 brought subsequently before the Court should have been made to the appropriate domestic body, at least in substance and in compliance with the formal requirements laid down in domestic law, but not that recourse should be had to remedies which are inadequate or ineffective (see the Aksoy v. Turkey judgment of 18 December 1996, Reports 1996-VI, pp. 2275-76, §§ 51-52, and the Akdivar and Others judgment cited above, p. 1210, §§ 65-67). 59. The Court emphasises that the application of the rule of exhaustion of domestic remedies must make due allowance for the fact that it is being applied in the context of machinery for the protection of human rights that the Contracting States have agreed to set up. Accordingly, it has recognised that Article 35 § 1 must be applied with some degree of flexibility and without excessive formalism. It has further recognised that the rule of exhaustion is neither absolute nor capable of being applied automatically; for the purposes of reviewing whether it has been observed, it is essential to have regard to the circumstances of the individual case. This means, in particular, that the Court must take realistic account not only of the existence of formal remedies in the legal system of the Contracting State concerned but also of the general context in which they operate, as well as the personal circumstances of the applicant. It must then examine whether, in all the circumstances of the case, the applicant did everything that could reasonably be expected of him or her to exhaust domestic remedies (see the Akdivar and Others judgment cited above, p. 1211, § 69, and the Aksoy judgment cited above, p. 2276, §§ 53-54). 60. The Court notes that Turkish law provides administrative, civil and criminal remedies against illegal and criminal acts attributable to the State or its agents (see paragraphs 36 et seq. above). 61. With respect to an action in administrative law under Article 125 of the Constitution based on the authorities' strict liability (see paragraphs 4142 above), the Court recalls that a Contracting State's obligation under Articles 2 and 13 of the Convention to conduct an investigation capable of leading to the identification and punishment of those responsible in cases of fatal assault might be rendered illusory if in respect of complaints under those Articles an applicant were to be required to exhaust an administrativelaw action leading only to an award of damages (see the Yaşa judgment cited above, p. 2431, § 74). This consideration applies equally under Article 3 of the Convention to cases of torture or serious ill-treatment, where the complainant has cause to feel vulnerable, powerless and apprehensive of the representatives of the State (see the Aksoy judgment cited above, p. 2277, § 56). Consequently, the applicant was not required to bring the administrative proceedings in question and the preliminary objection is in this respect unfounded.