70. It is therefore the African Commission„s view that the Complainant should have attempted to exhaust all available remedies, including appealing to the Regional Supreme Court which was the next step for the Complainant to appeal the decision of the Regional High Court according to the Ethiopian judicial structure s stipulated in Article 80 of the Constitution of Ethiopia. It is not sufficient for the Complainant to cast mere aspersion on the ability of the Regional Supreme Court, its Cassation Bench and the Cassation Bench of the Federal Supreme Court due to past incidences such as in the case of Ato Bekele Welde Michael & 25 Ors v The State, without availing itself to them. 71. Furthermore, in the African Commission‟s decision on Admissibility, in the case of Institute of Human Rights and Development in Africa and Interights/Mauritania19, the African Commission reaffirmed the principle that “the generally accepted meaning of local remedies, which must be exhausted prior to any communication/complaint procedure before the African Commission, are the ordinary remedies of common law that exist in jurisdictions and normally accessible to people seeking justice”. It is also the African Commission‟s view that in order to avoid a prolonged litigation process, the time the Applicants took to seek their grievances through non judicial remedies such as lodging a petition with the Ethiopian Federal Government, the Parliament, the Ethiopian Human Rights Commission, the Public Ombudsman, the Council of Constitutional Inquiry and the Ethical and Anti-Corruption Commission, they could have used that time attempting to exhaust the ordinary remedies of a judicial nature in Ethiopia20. For these reasons the African Commission holds that the Complainant has not fulfilled the requirements under Article 56(5) of the Charter. 19 Communication 242/01. Institute of Human Rights and Development in Africa and Interights/Mauritania. 20 Communication 242/01 and Communication 221/98. Institute of Human Rights and Development in Africa and Interights/Mauritania, Alfred B. Cudjoe/ Ghana. 23

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