CRC/C/87/D/86/2019 does not contain any formal defects; it also sets out the legal remedies as well as the five-day time limit and the requirements to be fulfilled. Moreover, the family had already lodged three previous appeals with the Court and was therefore aware of the procedure to be followed. 4.6 The State party notes that the appeal to the Federal Administrative Court against the decision of the State Secretariat for Migration of 24 April 2019 constituted an ordinary remedy. The Court should have ruled on the admissibility of the application and would have had the possibility of annulling the decision and requiring the State Secretariat for Migration to rule on the application for review. This remedy was therefore liable to provide effective redress. The State party recalls that the Committee against Torture has confirmed that the fact of submitting an appeal to the Court outside the time limit, without justifying the failure to comply with this formality, implies that domestic remedies have not been exhausted. 1 The financial grounds are not admissible, as the author could have applied for free legal aid 2 if he felt he could not afford to pay his counsel’s fees or bear the costs of the proceedings. In addition, the Court may, in exceptional cases, fully remit the costs of the proceedings normally borne by the unsuccessful party. The State party asserts that the question as to whether the author might be granted legal aid because of his lack of means or whether the costs of the proceedings might be waived must be decided by the judge and not the author himself. The State party adds that, in accordance with the subsidiarity principle, it is primarily for the national authorities to remedy any violation of the Convention. 4.7 The State party argues that the communication is inadmissible also on the grounds that it is not sufficiently substantiated. It maintains, firstly, that the communication does not specify who should be considered the author, or authors, or how the complaints entail a possible violation of the rights guaranteed by the Convention. Secondly, it is only in the light of the content of the third request for review that it is possible to try to understand the wishes of the person who was considered to be the author of the communication, although the subject matter of that request was different from that of the present communication. The State party notes that, in the communication under examination, the Committee had to send a questionnaire to the author to understand the reasons for the communication and that the “particularly laconic” response cannot remedy the shortcomings of the initial submission. Moreover, the communication sets out the facts in a simplified manner and refers to factual circumstances that do not concern G.R. and his rights. Author’s comments on the State party’s observations on admissibility 5.1 In his comments of 2 October 2019, the author argues that domestic remedies have not been exhausted and asserts that there are excusable grounds for the failure to observe the time limit for appealing against the State Secretariat for Migration decision of 24 April 2019. After he was notified of that decision, he immediately went to a free legal aid office, which refused to draft an appeal because of its workload. As the five-day deadline was very short and the office hours in Geneva were limited, he was unable to contact another free legal aid office in time. During that same period, V.R. and G.R. were in hospital in critical condition, which means that the author had to make these arrangements and visit his wife and child in the hospital at the same time. Furthermore, he did not have the means to pay for a lawyer. In addition, he does not speak French, did not understand the decision and does not know the procedure for drafting an appeal, as previous appeals had been drafted and submitted by a professional legal representative. He claims that he was unable to apply for free legal aid, since it is only after an appeal has been lodged that the Federal Administrative Court can decide whether he is indigent. In the light of the fact that the Optional Protocol recognizes the real difficulties that children may have in pursuing available remedies in the event of a violation of their rights, the requirements for the exhaustion of domestic remedies should be relaxed in this case. 5.2 As to the State party’s observation that the communication is not sufficiently substantiated, the author argues that it should be borne in mind that he drafted the initial submission and his response to the Committee’s questions without representation, in a 1 2 4 D.B. v. Switzerland (CAT/C/66/D/820/2017), paras. 6.2–6.3. The State party refers to article 65 of the Federal Act on Administrative Procedure of 20 December 1968.