Issues and proceedings before the Committee 5.1 Before considering any claims contained in a communication, the Human Bights Committee must, is accordance with rule 87 of its rules of procedure, decide whether or not it is admissible under the Optional Protocol to the Covenant. 5.2 The author has challenged the State party's contention that he failed to exhaust available domestic remedies in respect of his complaint against the judges of the Tribunal Correctionnel and the Court of Appeal. For the reasons set out in the following paragraph, the Committee need not pronounce itself on this point, 5.3 The Committee notes that the complaint pertains to the evaluation of evidence and alleged bias of the judges in the case* and recalls its established jurisprudence that it is generally for the appellate courts of States parties to the Covenant to evaluate facts and evidence in any given case. It is not in principle for the Committee to make sucb, an evaluation or challenge the motivation of decisions handed down by national courts, unless it can be ascertained that the evaluation of evidence was clearly arbitrary or amounted to a denial of justice, or that the judge manifestly violated his obligation of impartiality. Although it has been requested to examine matters belonging into the latter category, the Committee considers that while the author has sought to substantiate his allegation, the material before it does not reveal that the conduct of either trial or appeal suffered from such obvious defects. Accordingly, the communication is inadmissible as incompatible with the provisions of the Covenant, pursuant to article 3 of the Optional Protocol, 6. The Human Rights Committee therefore decides: (a) That the communication is inadmissible under article 3 of the Optional Protocol; (b) That this decision shall be communicated to the State party and to the author of the communication, [Done in English, French, Russian and Spanish, the English text being the original version.] -387-