pronouncement thereon during its 40th Ordinary Session scheduled for the 15th to 29th November 2006. 14. On the 10th October 2006, the Secretariat of the [African] Commission received the comments from the Complainants on the admissibility of communication 304/05. Law Admissibility Arguments of the Complainants 15. The FIDH and its member organisations in Senegal, in their request to institute proceedings, claim that their communication is being brought against a State Party to the African Charter by NGOs which have Observer Status with the African Commission and that it is alleging the violation of a provision of the [African] Charter, specifically Article 7(1) which stipulates that: "Every individual shall have the right to have his cause heard. This right includes: The right to appeal to the competent national organs against acts violating his fundamental rights as recognised and guaranteed by Conventions, Laws, Regulations and Customs in force." 16. The Complainants also claim that local remedies have been exhausted since the Constitutional Council which had been seized by some Members of the National Assembly had declared that the Law in question was in conformity with the Constitution with the exception of Article 2 which had been ruled unconstitutional by the Council. The complainants recall that under the terms of the Senegalese Constitution, the decision of the Constitutional Council is "the last recourse". 17. The Complainants further specify that their challenge of the law in question has not been brought before any other international judicial or quasi judicial body. Arguments of the State 18. The [Respondent] State claims first of all that its statement of defense on admissibility submitted after the three months deadline extension granted by the [African] Commission is admissible so long as the [African] Commission has not arrived at a decision on admissibility, especially where the Rules of Procedure of the [African] Commission do not provide for any sanction of a procedural nature in case of late submission of a statement. 19. The [Respondent] State then emphasizes that a communication submitted in accordance with the provisions of Article 55 of the [African] Charter should be based on verified facts that have caused damage, with real identifiable victims thereby making possible the exhaustion of local remedies. As far as the State is concerned, the communication submitted by the Complainants is based on potential, even hypothetical violations since neither the authors of the communication, nor the Members of Parliament who had brought the case before the Constitutional Council were victims and that their action could hardly be interpreted as an attempt to exhaust local remedies. 20. The Senegalese State is also of the view that the communication is incompatible with the [African] Charter in that the complainants made reference either to cases which have been conclusively dealt with by the law courts, or to events which, having taken place in 1993, fell under the hammer of the decennial prescription well before the promulgation of the law being challenged. 21. According to the [Respondent] State which, for this purpose, is basing its argument on the decision of the Constitutional Council on case No. 1-C-2005 of 12th February 2005, the provisions of the Law No. 2005-05 of 17th February 2005 are clear, without ambiguity and do not at all intend to prohibit recourse to the competent courts. As far as the [Respondent] State is concerned, by seizing the [African] Commission, the Complainants have no other intention than to have the [African] Commission interpret the provisions of a domestic law, competence which, in the State's view, the [African] Commission does not have. 22. The above-mentioned decision by the Constitutional Council had been made on the appeal submitted by Members of Parliament after adoption of the law by the National Assembly and prior to its promulgation by the President of the Republic. The Members of Parliament had requested the Constitutional Council to declare Articles 1, 2, 4 para. 2 and 10 of the law in question as being in conflict with some provisions of the Constitution, notably the preamble and Articles 1, 67, 76 and 88, as well as with some provisions of the UDHR and the African Charter. Whilst it ruled that Article 2 of the law in question was in conflict with the Constitution, the Constitutional Council declared itself incompetent to pronounce on the conformity of the 2