Tsikata v. Ghana,9 the Commission stated that for a matter to be brought before it, the matter should not be pending before a local court. 52. However, although the Commission finds that the case was actually pending at the time it was seized of it, the case was before the highest court whose decisions are final. The Commission finds that all remedies had therefore been exhausted, considering that, by the time the Complainant brought the matter before the Commission on 20 April 2005, the case had been pending before the Supreme Court for four years. It is as a result of this delay that the Complainant contends that local remedies were unduly prolonged, in which case his referral to the Commission meets the requirement of exhaustion of local remedies, pursuant to the above-mentioned Article 56 (5). 53. The argument submitted by the Complainant raises a preliminary question to which the Commission has to find a definite answer before deciding on the admissibility. The Commission must indeed establish the time from when proceedings pending before national courts should be considered unduly prolonged. 54. The same issue arose in the case of Kenya Human Rights Commission v. Kenya.10 In that case, the Commission was faced with the task of determining how long “unduly prolonged” may be in respect of proceedings pending before national courts. The question was whether to consider only the time lapse between the seizure of the local court (in that case, 23 December 1993) and seizure of the Commission (8 March 1994) or to consider the period between the seizure of the national courts and the date of the Commission’s decision (that is, October 1995). 55. Drawing inspiration from the position adopted by the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, and in accordance with Article 61 of the African Charter, the Commission asserts that the arguments submitted by the Complainant are both sound and relevant. Indeed, the Inter-American Commission considers that the length of proceedings must be determined from the date the procedures were initiated internally. It concluded in the case of Rodrigo Rojas DeNegri et al v. Chile11 that since the proceedings had remained pending for three years and six months, on the one hand, and 20 Communication 322/06 African Human Rights Case Law Analyser http://caselaw.ihrda.org/acmhpr/ search/?q=Tsatsu+Tsikata+c.+Ghana. 10 Kenya Human Rights Commission v. Kenya (2000) AHRLR 133 (ACHPR 1995). 11 Case No. 9755 (12 September 1988) Inter-American Human Rights Commission. 9 9