CEDAW/C/73/D/102/2016 early 1990s. C. became fully aware no later than in 1996. The State party maintains that this is outside the temporal jurisdiction of the Committee. 4.15 The delay in filing the communication amounts to an abuse of the right to present a communication. The authors submitted the communication 15 years after the entry into force of the Optional Protocol. Most of them were sterilized more than 25 years ago. Given that they have not exhausted any domestic remedies, the “reasonable time” for submitting their communication should be determined on the basis of the moment when they discovered “the real significance and all consequences of the sterilization”. For five of them, it must have been long before 2001 and for J.D., in August 2001. Although the “reasonable time” test is a delicate exercise, 32 the time between their sterilization and the filing of the communication was not “reasonable”. A fair balance between the right of the authors to defend themselves by submitting a communication before the Committee and the right of States parties not to be held accountable past a “reasonable time” was not struck. Basic principles, such as legal certainty and facilitation of the administration of justice, “suffer” when the communication is brought to the Committee after such a long period. 4.16 As to the exhaustion of domestic remedies, the State party focuses on effective remedies available since 26 February 2001, the date of entry into force of the Optional Protocol for the State party, as of which date the Committee has temporal jurisdiction to examine the existence of effective remedies. The Committee’s jurisprudence provides that sterilization is “of continuous nature”. That rationale would suggest that the State party is under an obligation to provide effective remedies even to women who were sterilized before the entry into force of the Optional Protocol for the State party. This is the case of all the authors except J.D. They became fully aware of their sterilization most likely in the 1990s. On 26 February 2001, when the Optional Protocol entered into force for the State party, five of the six authors must have been long aware of “the real significance and all consequences” of their sterilization. J.D. became aware in August 2001 at the latest. The material time for the consideration of the exhaustion of domestic remedies derives from those dates. 4.17 None of the authors initiated any domestic legal proceedings at the time they discovered the real significance of their sterilization or after the entry into force of the Optional Protocol for the State party. The complaints of J.D. and G. to the Ombudsperson cannot be regarded as a domestic remedy within the meaning of article 4 (1) of the Optional Protocol, given that in the light of the Committee’s jurisprudence, they are neither effective nor do they provide appropriate redress. 4.18 Since the entry into force of the Optional Protocol, civil action for the protection of personal rights under articles 11 of the old Civil Code (in force until 31 December 2013) has constituted an available and effective domestic remedy for all the authors of the communication. 33 In his report of 2005, the Ombudsperson confirmed that civil action is an appropriate remedy for unlawful sterilizations. The remedy had been available to the authors since the entry into force of the Optional Protocol for the State party in 2001. The case law of the domestic courts 34 confirmed the practical __________________ 32 33 34 10/18 Individual opinion of Committee member Patricia Schulz, in M.S. v. Philippines. In respect of an unlawful sterilization, a civil action for the protection of personal rights constitutes an effective remedy (European Court of Human Rights, V.C. v. Slovakia, application No. 18968/07, judgment of 8 November 2011, para. 166). The Slovakian and Czech legislation were the same, given that the two countries had one legal system until the dissolution of Czechoslovakia in 1993. The relevant legal norms continued to apply in both States. In the Regional and High Courts’ judgments of 19 December 2008 and 5 November 2009 in civil proceedings on the protection of personal rights, the courts stated that the sterilization performed in 2003 was unlawful and there was an unjustified interference with the woman ’s rights. In addition to the acknowledgement of the violation of rights, the courts awarded a compensation for non-pecuniary damage of CZK 200,000. 19-15443