65. By Note Verbale and letter dated 11 June, the African Commission informed
parties of its decision to defer the Communication to the 48 th Ordinary
Session scheduled to take place from 10 to 24 November 2010.
The Law on Admissibility
Submissions of the Complainants on Admissibility
66. The Complainants submit that all the criteria of Article 56 of the African
Charter are satisfied and that therefore, the Communication should be
declared Admissible.
67. On the issue of exhaustion of local remedies, the Complainants state that
under the Emergency Law (Law No. 162 of 1958 as amended), the President
may decide to commute the sentence, revoke the judgement, or order a retrial
by another circuit of the State Security Emergency Court. They submit that in
the present case, the sentence imposed by the State Emergency Court on 30
November 2006 on the victims becomes final once it has been ratified by the
President of the Republic and that there is no judicial right to appeal the
decision of the State Security Emergency Court.
68. According to the Complainants, the President‟s decision under the
Emergency Law is not judicial in nature and therefore it cannot be defined as
an available remedy for the Complainants to pursue. They compare the facts
of the present Communication to those of Constitutional Rights Project v
Nigeria in which the Commission described the power of the Governor to
confirm or disallow the decision of a special tribunal in Nigeria as a
“discretionary, extraordinary remedy of a non-judicial nature” and where it was
found that the Governor‟s decision was not a remedy of the nature that
required exhaustion under Article 56(5) of the African Charter. The
Complainants also refer to Civil Liberties Organisation v Nigeria wherein it
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