Universal-MigrationHRlaw-PG-no-6-Publications-PractitionersGuide-2014-eng

304 | PRACTITIONERS GUIDE No. 6
provisions will not change in the new Statute of the African Court of
Justice and Human Rights. 1302
2. Admissibility requirements
Admissibility requirements must be fulfilled before a complaint is examined
on the merits. They are contained in the human rights treaty establishing
the competence of the human rights body to hear individual or
collective complaints. Generally, these requirements are very similar for
all human rights bodies and, even when some are not specifically provided
for in the treaty, they are usually upheld by the competent human
rights body on the basis of the uniform interpretation of international
human rights law. As for the Inter-American Court of Human Rights and
the African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights, since these bodies do
not hear individual complaints directly, the admissibility criteria are the
same as those of their lower bodies, the IACHR and the ACHPR.
a) Exhaustion of domestic remedies
It is a general standard of international human rights law that, before
bringing a case before an international legal mechanism, an applicant must
have first exhausted the domestic remedies available. The rationale of the
principle lies in the fact that, as it is the international responsibility of the
State as a whole that is challenged, the State must have had the possibility
to redress that human rights violation domestically, before an international
forum should be made available. However, only those remedies that are
effective need to be exhausted. If several effective and adequate remedies
are available, it is sufficient to exhaust only one of them. 1303
A domestic remedy is “adequate” only when it is able to address that
particular human rights violation according to international human rights
law standards. 1304 A complaint under a substantial provision containing a
right under international human rights law must be arguable before the
1302 Article 30, Protocol on the Statute of the African Court of Justice and Human Rights, adopted
by the 11 th Ordinary Session of the Assembly of the African Union in Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt,
1 July 2008 (not yet in force) (ACJHR Statute).
1303 See, T.W. v. Malta, ECtHR, GC, Application No. 25644/94, Judgment of 29 April 1999, para.
34; Iatridis v. Greece, ECtHR, GC, Application No. 31107/96, Judgment of 25 March 1999,
para. 47. A comprehensive restatement of the European Convention’s admissibility criteria
together with the European Court’s jurisprudence is available in the Practical Guide on
Admissibility Criteria produced by the Research Division of the European Court of Human
Rights, and available at http://www.echr.coe.int/Documents/Admissibility_guide_ENG.pdf.
1304 See, Danyal Shafiq v. Australia, CCPR, op. cit., fn. 687, para. 6.4; Vélez Loor v. Panama,
IACHR, Case 92-04, Report No. 95/06, Admissibility Decision, 23 October 2006, para. 36;
Velasquez Rodriguez v. Honduras, IACtHR, op. cit., fn. 799, para. 64; Godinez Cruz v. Honduras,
IACtHR, Series C No. 5, Judgment of 20 January 1989, para. 67; Garbi and Corrales v.
Honduras, IACtHR, Series C, No. 6, Judgment of 15 March 1989, para. 88; Salah Sheekh v. the
Netherlands, ECtHR, op. cit., fn. 317, para. 121; Soldatenko v. Ukraine, ECtHR, op. cit., fn. 361,
para. 49; Shamayev and Others v. Georgia and Russia, ECtHR, op. cit., fn. 434, para. 446.