opponent to present his arguments by enjoying equal consideration in accordance with the procedural requirements and standards provided for by the law and which were applied by the same domestic court in respect of Pharmakina Company. Indeed, the Supreme Court of the DRC has not challenged the fact that the outbreak of the war was a force majeure - that is, an unpredictable event, outside and beyond the control of the Complainant – which made the Complainant physically unable to produce his file. Instead, the domestic court, while admitting the force majeure constituted by the war, said it could not prolong the proceedings before it to await the termination of an event whose end was uncertain. 102. The Commission is of the view that such reasoning is inconsistent with the spirit of the principle of equality before the law as guaranteed by international human rights instruments. International jurisprudence rather adopts the position that the failure to strictly enforce equality before the law must necessarily be justified. In Aumeeruddy-Cziffra and Others v. Mauritius, the Human Rights Committee of the United Nations considers that “sufficient justification for this difference has to be given.”18 103. The Commission further considers that the same procedure that had already remained pending for several years would obviously not have been unduly prolonged merely by being deferred for four months. The proof is that the Supreme Court had still not deliberated on the Complainant’s appeal at the time when the latter seized the Commission. This clearly means that the Supreme Court chose to prevent a four-month extension of the procedure to the detriment of the Complainant who was thus denied the right to benefit from the same principle of equality before the law as his opponent. The domestic court should have recognized the Complainant’s inability to exercise his right to equality before the law by affording the Complainant the opportunity to take advantage of the requested four-month deferment to produce his file. 104. In similar instances, the Commission concluded not only that the domestic court had unduly prolonged the procedure, but also that failure to provide adequate reasons for differential treatment before the law had placed the Complainant in a position of inequality that may be tantamount to a denial of justice. This was the case with Burkinabe Movement for Human and Peoples’ Rights v. Burkina Faso, where the African Commission held that the Supreme Court of Burkina Faso had not provided sufficient reason to justify the undue 18 Aumeeruddy-Cziffra and Others v. Mauritius (2000) AHRLR 3 (HRC 1981) para 9(2) 19