residence permit is valid or not. According to the author, some post offices
even go so far as to call the police if a foreigner appears without a residence
permit.
5.2 As for the appeal for judicial review, the author explains that this appeal
is admissible only on legal grounds, and must be submitted by a lawyer. The
author also maintains that decisions of the Conseil d'Etat suffer considerable
delays and do not have the effect of suspending proceedings.
5.3 With regard to the order of escort to the frontier, the author claims that
he never received the summons and was first acquainted with it only when
questioned by police. He claims that by the time he had been informed by
the police, it was too late to appeal, since appeals have to be lodged within
24 hours of notification.
Issues and proceedings before the Committee
6.1 Before considering any claim in a communication, the Committee
against Torture must decide whether or not it is admissible under article 22
of the Convention.
6.2 Article 22, paragraph 5 (b), of the Convention precludes the Committee
from considering any communication unless it has ascertained that all
available domestic remedies have been exhausted. That rule does not apply,
however, if it is established that remedies have been or might be
unreasonably prolonged or that they are unlikely to bring effective relief to
the alleged victim. In the present case, the author acknowledged that he had
not exhausted all available remedies provided for under French law –before
the Conseil d'Etat against the decision of the Commission de Recours des
Réfugiés, before the administrative court against the order to leave the
territory, or before the administrative tribunal against the order of escort to
the frontier. The reasons given by the author do not show that such appeals
were unlikely to succeed. The Committee therefore finds that the conditions
stipulated in article 22, paragraph 5 (b), of the Convention have not been
met.
7. The Committee therefore decides:
(a) That the communication is inadmissible;
(b) That this decision shall be notified to the author of the communication
and to the State party.
[Done in French (original version), and translated into English, Spanish and
Russian.]