It is based on this explicit legislative mandate that the African Committee makes reference to laws, and jurisprudence from other countries or treaty bodies in Africa and elsewhere. 26. This as a backdrop, a local remedy has been defined as "any domestic legal action that may lead to the resolution of the complaint at the local or national level."2Oneof the main purposes of exhaustion of local remedies, which is also linked to the notion of state sovereignty, is to allow the Respondent State be the first port of call to address alleged violations at the domestic level. In the words of the African Commission, exhaustion of local remedies is intended “to give domestic courts an opportunity to decide upon cases before they are brought to an international forum, thus avoiding contradictory judgments of law at national and international levels”.3 Furthermore, the primacy and greater immediacy of the domestic level is reinforced by the fact that local remedies are “normally quicker, cheaper, and more effective”4and allow for better fact finding of alleged violations too. The African Committee understands and unreservedly supports these roles that the rule on the exhaustion of local remedies is supposed to play. 27. The lack of awareness of an alleged violation by the State deprives it the opportunity to address such a violation. However, in the context of the present Communication, it would not be reasonably defensible to argue that the authorities in Kenya did not know about this ongoing allegation of violations of human rights in the presence of a number of related reports (including by the Human Rights Commission of Kenya) and more so, in the face of the pending case law before the High Court in Nairobi for such a long period of time. 28. This said, it is a well established rule under international human rights law procedures that “only domestic remedies that are available, effective, and adequate (sufficient) that need to be exhausted”.5In Communication Nos. 147/95 and 149/96, the African Commission held that a remedy is considered available if the Complainant can pursue it without impediment; it is deemed effective if it offers a prospect of success; and it is found sufficient if it is capable of redressing the complaint.6In other words, in terms of jurisprudence from the African Commission, and by interpreting the African Committee Guidelines for the Consideration of Communications, it follows therefore that the local remedies rule is not rigid. 29. In a clear distinction from other cases declared inadmissible by the African Commission,7 the Complainants did not operate on the basis of anticipating the effectiveness or otherwise of local remedies in theory and argued an exception to the rule. Rather, they in fact engaged the judicial system in Kenya, but with no success so far to have the case heard on its merits. Furthermore, there are unconfirmed indications that the case in the High Court is still pending as a result of some procedural technicalities that may need to be fulfilled under Kenyan law. Even then, it cannot be in these children’s best interests (a principle domesticated by the Children’s Act of 2001) to leave them in a legal limbo for such a long period of time in order to fulfil formalistic legal procedures. As an upper guardian of children, the State and its institutions should have proactively taken the necessary See Constitutional Rights Project [CRP] v. Nigeria, Communication No. 60/91. SERAC v. Nigeria, Communication No. 155/96, para 37. 4 F Viljoen International human rights law in Africa, (2007), 336. 5 As above. See too citations there in pertaining to the jurisprudence of the African Commission in this regard and Dawda Jawara v. The Gambia, Communication Nos. 147/95 and 149/96, para.32. 6 Paras 31 and 32. 7 See, for instance, Anuak Justice Council v Ethiopia, Communication 299/2005, para 48 2 3 6