CAT/C/35/D/238/2003 Page 9 consequences advanced by the State party against an interpretation consistent with the Convention’s purpose. 7.8 On the facts of his case, the complainant noted that the State party had not disputed the details of his income. In the Norwegian legal aid scheme, the authorities were satisfied with a declaration from the applicant along with a print of tax records, and the State party should not hold the Committee to a stricter standard. In any event, as the Human Rights Committee’s experience has shown, the consequences are manageable, and the advantage – greater protection of Convention rights for those who would otherwise go without any protection – is obvious. The complainant thus requested the Committee to declare the case admissible. The Committee’s decision on the admissibility of the renewed complaint 8.1 During its 31st session, in November 2003, the Committee considered the admissibility of the renewed complaint. It observed, at the outset, that the question of whether a complainant had exhausted domestic remedies that are available and effective, as required by article 22, paragraph 5, of the Convention, could not be determined in abstracto, but had to be assessed by reference to the circumstances of the particular case. In its initial decision, the Committee had accepted that judicial review, in the State party’s courts, of an administrative decision to reject asylum was, in principle, an effective remedy. The Committee noted that a pre-condition of effectiveness, however, was the ability to access the remedy, and, in this case, as the complainant had not pursued an application for legal aid, he had not shown that judicial review was closed, and therefore unavailable, to him, within the meaning of article 22, paragraph 5, of the Convention. 8.2 In the present case, the complainant had since been denied legal aid. Had legal aid been denied because the complainant’s financial resources exceeded the maximum level of financial means triggering the entitlement to legal aid, and he was thus able to provide for his own legal representation, then the remedy of judicial review could not be said to be unavailable to him. Alternatively, in some circumstances, it might be considered reasonable, in the light of the complainant’s language and/or legal skills, that s/he represented himself or herself before a court. 8.3 In the present case, however, it was unchallenged that the complainant’s language and/or legal skills were plainly insufficient to expect him to represent himself, while, at the same time, his financial means, as accepted by the State party for purposes of deciding his legal aid application, were also insufficient for him to retain private legal counsel. If, in such circumstances, legal aid was denied to an individual, the Committee considered that it would run contrary to both the language of article 22, paragraph 5, as well as the purpose of the principle of exhaustion of domestic remedies and the ability to lodge an individual complaint, to consider a potential remedy of judicial review as “available”, and thus declaring a complaint inadmissible if this remedy was not pursued. Such an approach would deny an applicant protection before the domestic courts and at the international level for claims involving a most fundamental right, the right to be free from torture. Accordingly, the consequence of the State party’s denial of legal aid to such an individual was to open the possibility of examination of the complaint by an internbatinal instance, though without the benefit of the domestic courts first addressing the claim. The Committee thus concluded that, since the complainant