104. The Commission notes that the implication of a rigid application of Article 56(5) to the present Communication would be the same as that which the Commission sought to avoid in the referenced past decisions. In this regard, the Commission takes cognizance of the fact that the present Communication has been filed against fourteen different States, who are alleged to have collectively taken a decision which violates the rights of the Victims as protected under the African Charter (the merits of which is yet to be examined by the Commission) and that each State has its unique legal jurisdiction and court systems. On this basis, the Commission considers that a rigid application of Article 56(5) to the present Communication by requiring the Victims/Complainant to exhaust domestic remedies in all of the fourteen (14) Respondent States by filing court applications against each State60 would, as argued by the Complainant, occasion a paralysing delay and costs to the Complainant/Victims. 105. On the basis of the foregoing, the Commission is persuaded to conclude that exhaustion of local remedies, even if available, is neither practicable nor desirable in the present case, especially as it would be unduly prolonged, and therefore holds that the Complainant is dispensed from the requirement under Article 56(5) of the African Charter. 106. With respect to Article 56(6) of the African Charter, the Commission notes that the African Charter does not specifically state what it means by "reasonable time", as opposed to Article 46 × Article 46 1. Admission by the Commission of a petition or communication lodged in accordance with Articles 44 or 45 shall be subject to the following requirements: b. that the petition or communication is lodged within a period of six months from the date on which the party alleging violation of his rights was notified of the final judgment; of the American Convention on Human Rights and Article 35 × Admissibility criteria Article 35 1.The Court may only deal with the matter after all domestic remedies have been exhausted, according to the generally recognised rules of international law, and within a period of six months from the date on which the final decision was taken. of the European Convention on Human Rights which provide for a six months period. In the absence of this specification, the Commission has always ruled based on the contexts and characteristics of each case.61 107. Furthermore, the requirement under Article 56(6) provides for two events from which the timeline within which a Communication has been submitted may be computed, being: (i) "from the time local remedies are exhausted"; or (ii) "from the date the Commission is seized with the matter". From the Commission's analysis on Article 56(5) in the preceding paragraphs, domestic remedies were not (required to be) exhausted in the present case, consequent to which the timeline for the submission of the Communication may not be computed "from the time local remedies are exhausted". This leaves us with the second limb of the provision, that is, "from the date the Commission is seized with the matter". Notably, this second limb of Article 56(6) has not been pronounced upon in the Commission's jurisprudence. 108. In this regard, the Commission notes that while the term "seized" or "seizure" has acquired a technical meaning in its Communications handling procedure, meaning "the decision by the Commission to consider a Communication"62 , this technical meaning of seizure is clearly not what is contemplated under the second limb of Article 56(6). This is because, for a seizure to technically occur, the Communication must have first been submitted to the Commission, while on the other hand Article 56(6) contemplates that a Communication must be submitted "after" and within a timeline "from the date the Commission is seized with the matter". 109. In the Commission's view, the jurisdiction of the Commission began in relation to the facts of the present Communication on the date on which the alleged cause of action under the African Charter arose. In this regard, the Commission observes from the appendices to the Communication that while the First Decision of the SADC Summit of August 2010 allowed members of the Tribunal to remain in office but imposed a moratorium on the receipt of new cases by the Tribunal, pending the decision of the Extra-Ordinary Summit on the status, roles and responsibilities of the Tribunal,63 the Second Decision of 20 May, 201164 reaffirmed the moratorium65 and set out the resolution of the Summit not to reappoint members of the Tribunal whose terms of office had expired.66 110. Taking all the facts into account, the Commission notes that the Tribunal could not convene, as a result of the Second Decision of May 2011 not to reappoint the Tribunal judges whose terms had expired. It is therefore clear that it was this latter decision that foreclosed the chances of the Victims approaching the Tribunal. Consequently, this date, would therefore, in the view of the Commission, be the date on which the alleged cause of action under the African Charter arose and the time period of the jurisdiction of the Commission began, in relation to the facts of the present Communication. Accordingly, the Commission finds that this Communication was submitted within at least, two (2) months from the date in which the time 12