has been settled as required by Article 56 (7)." 50. Desirous of getting to the bottom of this issue in the present communication, the African Commission requested for the copy of the decision by the UN Sub-Commission as relates to the Bakweri lands dispute from both parties. None of them, however, was able to furnish the Commission with a copy of the same. The Complainant, however, had availed the African Commission a copy of a letter, dated 18th July 2002, from the Governor of the South West Province of Cameroon, on behalf of the Minister of External Relations, to the President of the BLCC on the "Decision of the UN High Commission on Human Rights on Bakweri Claim'" the relevant contents of which are summarised as follows [During its oral submissions at the 34th Ordinary Session, the Respondent State has claimed that, not denying the fact, the Governor had no right to write such a letter]: " ... On matters of procedure, the Commission felt that the petitioners did not fully exploit local avenues available to solve the problem and the Cameroon judicial system was deemed competent to handle the petition. Concerning the content of the petition, the Commission commended the government's position on the issue and encouraged government's efforts in her continuous willingness to resolve once and for all, this matter of Bakweri Lands. Considering the above, the Commission considered itself incompetent to handle the matter, and therefore asked the matter to be closed." 51. The African Commission also heard the parties at its 34th Ordinary Session on this and other issues. Regarding the veracity of this particular claim on the decision of the UN Sub-Commission, both parties seemed to be on all fours that it was in fact so decided. Given that, thus, and although a copy of the said decision was not made available to the African Commission to examine, the Commission notes that the content of that letter adequately reflected the outcome of the Complainant's petition to the UN Sub-Commission. 52. As alleged by the Complainant, thus, the African Commission notes that the UN Sub-Commission did not decide on the merits of the case so as to warrant the discontinuance of the consideration of this matter by the African Commission as per Article 56.7 of the African Charter. The principle behind the requirement under this provision of the African Charter is to desist from faulting Member States twice for the same alleged violations of human rights. This is called the non bis in idem rule (also known as the Principle or Prohibition of Double Jeopardy, deriving from criminal law) and ensures that, in this context, no state may be sued or condemned [more than once] for the same alleged violation of human rights. In effect, this principle is tied up with the recognition of the fundamental res judicata status of judgements issued by international and regional tribunals and/or institutions such as the African Commission. (Res judicata is the principle that a final judgement of a competent court/ tribunal is conclusive upon the parties in any subsequent litigation involving the same cause of action.) 53. The parties before the African Commission have not disputed the fact that they were the very same parties at loggerheads before the UN Sub-Commission disputing the same issues as before the African Commission. They both, however, admit that there has been no final judgment on the merits of their dispute by the UN Sub-Commission. The contents of the excerpts of the letter reproduced in paragraph 47 above have not been contested either, thereby buttressing the fact that the matter was not conclusively dealt with by the UN Sub-Commission. This means that the provision of Article 56.7 incorporating the principle of non bis in idem does not apply in the present case as there has been no final settlement of the matter by the UN Sub-Commission. Therefore, the African Commission holds that the Respondent State's allegation that the communication be declared inadmissible as per the provision of Article 56.7 is unmaintainable. 54. Finally, to the objection that the Complainant did not exhaust local remedies as all the actions the BLCC took certainly do not correspond to remedies mentioned by the African Charter, the Complainant claimed that local remedies in Cameroon were unavailable, ineffective and inadequate. Both in writing and orally before the African Commission, the Complainant admitted that it has not exhausted local remedies. Besides, it claimed that the circumstances in Cameroon warrant that it be granted waiver of this requirement. It argued, among others, that: • it has been trying to seek relief for the matter from the Cameroonian authorities, including from the President of the Republic, for over nine years, but to no avail; • the judiciary is not independent; • the Government has had ample time and opportunity to resolve the matter but failed to do so; • the Executive and other organs can pre-empt the decisions of courts thereby rendering approach to the courts futile; 7