state their religion as one of the three ‘revealed’ religions. They appealed through the Egyptian courts, where they lost their final appeal, and that at the time this complaint was submitted, there was no question that they could receive identity documents without reference to their Baha’i faith. 62. Secondly, the decision of the Lower Court is not final and can be appealed to the Supreme Administrative Court, which has already made its position clear in the Complaints’ case. 63. Lastly, even if the Lower Court’s decisions in the aforementioned cases were to be upheld, they would not remedy the violation complained of in this case. This is due to the fact that if the new rulings are upheld, the Baha’is would be able to obtain identity documents, but they still would not allow their ID documents to reflect their religious affiliation. A dash would be put in the section that reflects religious affiliation, while other religions (Islam, Judaism and Christianity) are not limited in the same manner. 64. The Complainants refer to Jawara v The Gambia, where the Commission stated that when dealing with domestic remedy, ‘three major criteria could be deduced….in determining this rule, namely: the remedy must be available, effective and sufficient’.2 The effectiveness of a remedy is determined by its ability to remedy the rights violated. In this regard, they submit that, to the extent that the Hindi Halim and Hosni AbdelMassih cases provide a remedy for Baha’is to have official documents, they do not however provide an effective remedy to the Complainants in this case. They aver that their documents which listed their religious affiliations were confiscated by the State. 65. The Complainants submit that, due to the above reasons, they have exhausted all local remedies available to them in Egypt for the purpose of Article 56(5) and that they have submitted the Communication within eleven months after exhausting local remedies pursuant to Article 56(6). 66. The Complainants’ therefore request the African Commission to declare the Communication Admissible. B. Respondent State’s Submissions on Admissibility 67. The Respondent State avers that the Administrative Judicial Court at its sitting on 29 January 2008 cancelled the Administrative decision which required the plaintiffs to enter one of the three divine religions recognized in Egypt in their identity cards and granted them the identification cards without filling in the column on religion. 2 Communication 147/95 - Jawara v The Gambia (2000) ACHPR para 30-31. 9