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 16

Select target paragraph3