CEDAW/C/60/D/48/2013 Additional information submitted by the authors 5. On 20 March 2013, the authors informed the Committee that, on 16 January 2013, they had sent a third letter requesting the Registrar of the High Court to provide them with a corrected version of the drawn order so that they could refile their appeal. The authors’ additional submission was transmitted to the State party on 21 June 2013. According to the information before the Committee, no reply had been received as at the date of the examination of the communication. Issues and proceedings before the Committee Consideration of admissibility 6.1 In accordance with rule 64 of its rules of procedure, the Committee must decide whether the communication is admissible under the Optional Protocol. Pursuant to rule 72 (4), it is to do so before considering the merits of the communication. 6.2 The Committee takes note of the authors’ claims under articles 2 (c), 2 (f), 5 (a), 13 (b), 15 (1), 15 (2), 16 (1)(c) and 16 (1)(h) of the Convention, read in conjunction with the Committee’s general recommendations Nos. 21 and 27, with regard to codified customary law provisions that have prevented them from administering and inheriting property following the death of their husbands. 6.3 The Committee recalls that, under article 4 (1) of the Optional Protocol, it is precluded from considering a communication unless it has ascertained that all available domestic remedies have been exhausted unless the application of suc h remedies is unreasonably prolonged or unlikely to bring effective relief. In this connection, the Committee takes note of the authors’ arguments to the effect that their appeal submitted on 15 September 2006 to the Court of Appeal has still not been examined and that no remedy available 23 is likely to bring effective relief. The Committee observes that the authors’ appeal had been pending for four years before a hearing was scheduled by the Court, that the Court summarily dismissed the appeal owing to a minor defect in the date of the order of the High Court and that the defect is not attributable to the authors. The Committee further observes that the authors have unsuccessfully sought several times to have the defect remedied by the High Court in order to be able to resubmit their appeal and that they did so again on 16 January 2013, without having received a response from the High Court to date. In the light of the information available to it and in the absence of any observations by the State party on the admissibility of the communication, the Committee considers that such protracted appeal proceedings have been unreasonably prolonged within the meaning of article 4 (1). 6.4 The Committee considers that the authors have sufficiently substantiated their claims under articles 2 (c), 2 (f), 5 (a), 13 (b), 15 (1), 15 (2), 16 (1)(c) and 16 (1)(h) of the Convention for the purposes of admissibility. Accordingly, having found no impediment to the admissibility of those claims, the Committee proceeds to their consideration on the merits. __________________ 23 15-05820 See paras. 3.9 and 3.10 above, i.e. the remedy recommended by the High Court of leaving district councils to amend the customary law or using civil litigation instead of a constitutional claim. 9/13