The State, the Supreme Court‟s Cassation Bench and the Cassation Bench of the Federal Supreme Court can only use their cassation powers to consider cases where there have been an error on points of law, made by lower Courts is flawed. 69. The African Commission in Article 19 v Eritrea and in Anuak Justice Council v. Ethiopia held that: “it is incumbent on the Complainant to take all necessary steps to exhaust, or at least attempt the exhaustion of local remedies”, adding that: “it is not enough for the Complainant to cast aspersions on the ability of the domestic remedies of the State due to isolated or past incidences”. The African Commission further held that “arguing that local remedies are not likely to be successful, without trying to avail oneself of them, will simply not sway this Commission”. In these cases, the African Commission referred to the Human Rights Committee‟s decision in A. v Australia, in which the Committee held that: “mere doubts about the effectiveness of local remedies or prospect of financial costs involved did not absolve the author from pursuing such remedies. According to Article 80 (5) of the Constitution of Ethiopia, decisions of the Regional High Court are appealable to the Regional Supreme Court. It is only when the decision has a basic error of law that the Complainant‟s can appeal to the Cassation Bench of the Regional Supreme Court. This is also illustrated in the case cited by the Complainant in Ato Bekele Welde Michael & 25 Ors v The State, where the Applicants in that case approached the Regional Supreme Court appealing the decision of the Regional High Court, and thereafter approached the Cassation Bench of the Regional Supreme Court appealing on the decision having a basic error of law. Therefore the Complainant‟s argument that the Regional Supreme Court considers cases similar to the Applicants only in instances where there has been an error of law is flawed. 22

Select target paragraph3