in force. Article 457 on the confidentiality of proceedings held in closed court was repealed by Law No. 504 of 1999. Article 9 of Decree No. 2790 established the public order judges and granted them competence to hear offences provided for in the “Drugs Statute”.2 This article was given permanent legal character by means of Decree No. 2271 of 1991. The above-mentioned Decree No. 2790 withdrew competence to try offences provided for in the “Drugs Statute” from “district criminal courts and district courts exercising mixed jurisdiction” as specialized jurisdictions and established the “public order, faceless or emergency jurisdiction”, which was converted into secret “regional justice” after its entry into force on 1 July 1992. members of an institution established subsequent to the commission of the offence. He likewise claims that the right to be tried in conformity with laws that predated the act of which he was accused and the guarantee enshrined in article 14 of the Covenant that all persons shall be equal before the courts has been breached, as he has been tried under the restrictive emergency provisions introduced subsequent to the offence. 3.3 The author further claims that he was deprived of the right to a public trial, with a public hearing and obligatory attendance by defence counsel and a representative of the public prosecutor’s office, as provided for in the Code of Criminal Procedure which entered into force on 1 July 1992. He recalls the decision of the Human Rights Committee in the Elsa Cubas v. Uruguay and Alberta Altesor v. Uruguay cases,3 where it found that in both cases there had been a violation of article 14, paragraph 1, of the Covenant because the trial had been conducted in camera, in the absence of the defendant, and the judgement had not been rendered in public. The complaint 3.1 The author claims to be a victim of a violation of the Covenant because Decrees No. 2790 of 20 November 1990 and No. 2700 of 30 November 1991 were applied ex post facto against him. In particular, he claims a violation of article 14, paragraph 1, of the Covenant because neither the Bogotá Prosecution Commission, which conducted the investigation and brought the charges against the author, nor the Bogotá Regional Court, which handed down the judgement against the author, nor the National Court existed at the time the offences were committed, i.e. on 13 May 1990. The author maintains that the Prosecution Commission began the investigation in 1993 and brought charges against him before the Bogotá Regional Court for an offence allegedly committed on 13 May 1990. He states that the court is therefore an unlawful ad hoc body or special commission. 3.4 According to the author, the Regional Court judgement of 21 February 1997 shows that he was convicted on the basis of in camera proceedings conducted in his absence, exclusively in writing and without a public hearing which would have enabled him to confront prosecution witnesses and challenge evidence against him. He never attended the Regional Court or had any personal contact with the judges who convicted him, nor did he meet the faceless National Court judges who rendered judgement at second instance. He maintains that he was denied the guarantee of an independent and impartial trial because he was presumed to be the head of the “Cali cartel”, an alleged criminal organization. 3.2 The author maintains that the court competent to try this case would have been the Cali Circuit Court of Criminal and Mixed Jurisdiction as a specialized court, since it was courts in that category that were competent in drug-trafficking matters at the time the offence was committed. However, since this court was abolished on 15 July 1991, the competent court would have been the Cali Circuit Criminal Court, which is a court of ordinary jurisdiction. The competent court at second instance, at the appeal stage, would have been the Cali Higher Judicial District Court. The author states that the guarantee of a competent, independent and impartial judge or court has been ignored as he was tried by State party’s admissibility statements and author’s comments 4.1 In its observations of 8 April 1999, 2 May 2000, 28 June 2001 and 26 February 2002, the State party refers to the admissibility requirements for the communication and argues that Miguel Angel Rodriguez Orejuela has not exhausted domestic remedies, since the remedy of judicial review is still pending,4 and there are other remedies available, such as the application for review of the facts before the Supreme Court of Justice, which is an 2 This article stipulates that the competence of the public order courts responsible for hearing cases shall include ongoing actions and proceedings for punishable acts assigned to them under the article, regardless of the time when they were perpetrated, and related offences. It further stipulates that in every case favourable substantive law or procedural law having substantive effects of the same character shall have primacy over unfavourable law. 3 Elsa Cubas v. Uruguay, Views No. 70/1980 of 1 April 1982, and Alberto Altesor v. Uruguay, Views No. 10/1977 of 23 March 1982. 4 When the State party sent its observations of 8 April 1999 and 2 May 2000, no decision had yet been handed down on the remedy of judicial review. 107